Whats up guys/gals, Gonna change my plugs tommorow in the 4Runner. Just wanted to get a heads up before I do it. What kind of tools will I need, specialty tools? How much crap needs to be taken off the engine to acess 'em? Its a 5VZ-FE. Thanks in advance.

 

^^^^^^^^^bump^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Passenger side is easier to take the intake hose off...

Drivers side, I just usually move some wires/hoses out of the way...

You'll need a nice long 12" extension, and I believe 5/8ths spark plug socket.

Don't torque them too hard! I usually just go to snug, then a quarter turn.

 

Read away:

http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/mainte...ep3.html#plugs

 

I bought the Denso Plugs yesterday. I only had about and hour so i figure i will wait until i have some more time on my hands. MTL- good link!

 

Exactly as stated by everyone else, the only thing that I would do extra besides the anti sieze and rubber hose tip (a real great tip to not "cross thread")

is when you have the coil packs off of the car before the old plugs are removed. clean the outside of the rubber plug extension with a damp towel and then Blast each plug tunnel with Compressed air for at least ten seconds each (or vacuum). Any debris that falls into engine through the spark plug chamber can score the heck out of your cylinder walls.

Also take care not to over torque (strip) or under torque the plugs. Tighten just enough to where you feel the metal plug washer initially crush and form its seal (and then give it a slight 1/8 to 1/4 turn after that).
Go slow and go 1 plug (and plug pack) at a time.... trust me

as these plugs are not the most accessable and be prepaird to take some components off (air duct for air cleaner ect... )on the left and right side banks of the engine.
HEY, while you have the air intake assembly you can also clean the throttle body at the same time!

Believe it or not, even though this is fairly strait foward there is potential to break things or mess things up and therfore i would consider this a semi "moderate" job that took me about 90 minutes total both times that i've done it, and you be suprised how involved it is to carfully replace 6 plugs on a 3G runner. And I forgot to attach one of the plug packs and my SR5 started immediatly and died with a registered error code. I reattached the wire plug for the plug pack and reset the computer and good to go.
good luck and god speed

 

one trick i use is to use 2 sparkplug sockets, one with and one w/o the rubber inside. the one with the rubber is to lift the plug out of the engine and the other to tighten.

what happens sometimes is when you tighten down the plug with the rubber in the socket, it gets stuck on the plug and only the extension comes out