Ignition coil problems

[George]

They failed for the 2003's -2005's so my guess is that people are gunshy of the weapon X parts as they are.
I believe that the new Ford parts are significantly improved. Don't know of any owners who had these installed and had failures. And I know a lot of owners that have had them replaced.

 

[1911Tex]

Thanks George. I replaced the temp spare with a Maxxis. The original Michelins were inspected at our Ford dealership and they said all looked very good, even though 10 years old and 5400 miles since new. I am suspicious of old tires........even if they are Michelins.

Also your thoughts of flushing and replacing the original brake fluid?
Your thoughts and thanks again....

 

[George]

Thanks George. I replaced the temp spare with a Maxxis. The original Michelins were inspected at our Ford dealership and they said all looked very good, even though 10 years old and 5400 miles since new. I am suspicious of old tires........even if they are Michelins.

Also your thoughts of flushing and replacing the original brake fluid?
Your thoughts and thanks again....

Hi Tex:

My tires are 10+ years old and the Tire place I deal with said no problem. I have 17000 miles and he said since it is not exposed to the sun very much they have not deteriorated.

I have never in 50+ years ever replaced mine on any car -= There are some users that do it every 2 yeras others say never. You may want to look it up in the manual

OR, here is a self test that you can buy from Phoenix Systems, a brakestrip system that takes 60 seconds. Look up brakebleeder *******

 

[PhilD]

Same usual problems but fixed myself

I had the problems as everyone listed. I have a 2002 TBird with now 55,000 miles on her, owned for 18 months. Started popping out the back exhaust and then losing power at the same time so obviously a misfire. decided to change the coils, ended up finding a great deal on Ebay from a company in miami where I got a set of eight coils for $65.

upon removing the coils I found oil in three plug holes on the right side and one very bad on the left. So obviously have a leaking gasket, only two companies make the gasket set for this car, best deal was amazon for $41.65. It comes with valve cover gaskets, spark plug seat gaskets and all the bolts get new washers as well.

This meant I had to remove the valve covers (yes its a long and hard job but is possible if you know what to do), clean the covers off due to the plug seat gaskets actually melting inside the holes, found Goo Off removed this very well. Someone who had previously worked on this car before i had it tried putting silicon caulking inside the holes by the coils thinking this would solve the problem...DUH! Soooo had to clean that out, again Goo off is great.

Now to be very honest to remove the valve covers you need to unbolt and move around as best as possible a lot of junk they fit over them inside the engine compartment so be prepared for a lot of frustration and injured hands.

The replaceing of the gaskets is very easy in itself as they are preformed rubber and just fit into the slot around the edge of the valve cover and the bolts stay in the cover holes with the new washers holding them there, this keeps the gasket from falling out when you turn it over to refit back onto the engine.

So in total I changed the gaskets, the coils and I put new bosch iridium spark plugs in.

Total cost in parts was around $150

The savings in labor had I taken it somewhere is easily $1000 to $1500.

My neighbor is a mechanic for Toyota and even he said that would cost plus he admitted that they would not have cleaned the melted spark plug gasket seats from the holes, they would just have put the new ones on top of it.

She started first time in a massive plume of smoke (well I did disconnect a lot of stuff including a fuel line that blocks the valve cover plus the oil still sitting around) and then she was fine, used her constantly for two days, runs like a dream.

Now I did buy a set of U joint socket adaptors for the ratchet wrench as this means you can release the bolts at 90 degrees and boy do you need them, some bolts are almost impossible to get to.

What i found out was several coils had been replaced and there was no way a mechanic could have missed the oil, also one spark plug seat gasket was missing completely and due to the oil leak going on for quite a time I imagine the plugs themselves were pretty well burnt out.

So for all its worth I recommend doing it yourself, the cost now is actually pretty good I think.

 

[Quickdraw]

PhilD,

Thank you for the comentary...

 

[PhilD]

Hope that all helped

I hope that helped, it was long winded but I was trying to give people a good listing of what occurred to me and how I worked round it. If anyone has questions about how I did the work or on a particular part please ask as there is so little information on the web about working on these cars and a lot is wrong.

I am not a mechanic and do not claim to be but I have worked on cars all my life as we could never afford new cars just old beat up things that we had to keep running so we could get to work and stuff.

These cars are very confusing because of all the extra junk thrown into the engine compartment. The worst bit was disconnecting a fuel line from the fuel pressure regulator (that no site shows even when looking at parts as the one in the car) to the engine which crosses over the drivers side (left) valve cover. You have to disconnect it but there is a special connector and you need a fuel line tool to remove it, go to harbor freight tools, they sell a set of plastic ones that look like discs in various sizes and colors with a collar. They work.

PhilD

 

[George]

Phil: You are more brave than I am. I look under the hood of the new cars and shutter....then go to a dealer