Did my spark plugs!

Just wanted to share something I didn't know, and didn't find here on the forum until After I finished the job... On the 2008 4.6V8, Ford changed the spark plugs mid-year, from the old 3 piece plug to a standard 1 piece plug. The old plugs have a black coil boot, and the new plugs have a brown coil boot.

I had prepped for the anticipated day-long plug changing event, bought the 3 piece replacement plugs, and got my stuff ready to go. My rig had 110,300 miles on it, so I was expecting a lot of time needed.

I pulled the coils, blew the dirt out of the holes with compressed air, and removed the coil boots. Blew any remaining dirt out, and sprayed some Aero Kroil penetrating oil into the holes. After about 5 minutes of soaking, I went ahead and tried to break the plugs free.

I turned the plugs about a 1/4 turn, and they turned easily so I continued to a half turn. Surprise, the plugs came right out by hand! All 8 came right out, no sticking, no squealing, no binding. Yes, Aero Kroil is VERY expensive, but worth it!!

And of course, that's when I found out I didn't have the 3 piece plugs and went to the nearest auto parts to get the correct plugs. Put everything back together, even with the trip to the store, done in 3 hours. The new plugs are gapped at .045, and the old ones were over .070 when I pulled them out.

Did a lot more research when I got done and found other posts with more information on the date of the change, and different boot colors, etc. I really wish I'd found them before I started, but oh well... It's done, and the ST runs very smooth.

Got lots of good tips here! Thanks guys!!

I'm about to do mine too. Any suggestions on tools? Sockets, extenders, or anything that might help.

You really don't need anything special to do this job, a regular spark plug socket with an extension will work fine. The coil boot on the #8 plug was a little hard to handle due to space constraints, just be careful not to bend the plug on the coil. I used a torque wrench to tighten the new plugs to 30#, and I put Nickel Anti-Seize on the threads.

If you can find it, I really recommend the Aero Kroil as the penetrating oil. This stuff really gets inside the threads. It says on the can that it penetrates to within a millionth of an inch, and I was thrilled with the performance.

When you're done, change your oil to remove any penetrant that entered the cylinders. It's ok to run the engine to warm it up before you change the oil, but don't drive it with the penetrant in the oil.

Oh, and I did NOT work on a warm engine, it was cold when I did mine. Good luck!