birchy

Hello all,

Just did the plugs and wires on my own for the first time. Did quite a lot of reading on here and in my haynes manual ahead of time. It wasn't that bad actually. Probably took me about 1.5 hours, but I'll most likely cut that in half next time. Cleaned the throttle body as well since I had the intake silencer off. And yes.. that back drivers side plug is definitely a PITA!

I saw a few comments about making sure not to over-tighten (or under-tighten) the plugs. I realized today that my torque wrench only goes as low as 25 foot/lbs. Apparently the plugs are supposed to be torqued to 13.9 foot/lbs. So I did my best to do it by hand.

A few people said to start it off by hand, and then once the metal touches do another 1/4 turn. I found though that once it started to snug up, and I switched to the ratchet, I got another 2-3 full turns or so before it actually got tight, and then I did the 1/4 turn. Does that sound about right to you guys?

It started up fine. Seems to be running fine. How will I know if I over-tightened them?

jason191918

Next time get the right torque wrench and do it the right way, or just snug 'em up pretty good. That last 1/4 turn prolly wasn't necessary, but unless you stripped 'em you should be fine. You'll know they're leaking when your truck runs like crap from lost compression.

birchy

I'm like 95% positive I didn't strip them. The first one I put in, I actually had to take back out for a minute and the threads looked fine. When I put it back in again there were no issues. I'm thinking it's all good.

Side note.. one of the old ones that I took out was so loose I could take it out just by turning the extension with my hand! Yikes. There was a bit of a burn mark on the porcelain.

Going to have a go at the fuel filter next..

1stgen4gunner

Under tighten them and you loose power, over tighten them and they strip or break. Screw them in first without any tools, use you fingers, when it stops going in and seems tight, just tighten in with a wrench, give it a slight yank, not too hard now. It should be snug to get the best spark.

Al's Chop Shop

good and snug is all it takes. tight is too much.

the previous owner used an idiot mechanic that not only tightened the plugs down too much, he got the #3 cyl plug cross theaded real bad. its so messed up now i have to pull the head and run a tap through from the inside out, and maybe i can salvage the head.

Al