Spark Plug Wire Color and Routing

[Craigerz]

Hello All,

Back from working out of state all summer and came home to a burn wire on the Ex. Happened at the off road park last weekend. Found some MC on rock auto for cheap ( the other ones had less than 10k miles on them, guess I didn't route them good enough).

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=382151&cc=1119697&jsn=499

The Motor Craft wires have 2 different color boots. Obviously they have heat shields on them. Since the wires on there now are all black I have no reference, so where do these 2 go?

I plan on keeping a few of the old wires in the truck for emergencies like this, it was a beating getting home.

 

[koda2000]

Hello All,

Back from working out of state all summer and came home to a burn wire on the Ex. Happened at the off road park last weekend. Found some MC on rock auto for cheap ( the other ones had less than 10k miles on them, guess I didn't route them good enough).

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=382151&cc=1119697&jsn=499

The Motor Craft wires have 2 different color boots. Obviously they have heat shields on them. Since the wires on there now are all black I have no reference, so where do these 2 go?

I plan on keeping a few of the old wires in the truck for emergencies like this, it was a beating getting home.

I replaced the OE wires on a 2000 5.0L Mountaineer this past spring. I went to great lengths to install the new wires exactly like the OE wires. I have the 2 shielded wires on cylinders 3 and 7. My replacement wires looked exactly the same as the OE wires I was replacing. My shielding does not look the same as the shielding in the image you provided. Mine were sheet metal and the ones in your image look braided, not that this should make much difference.

I used a Denso wire set, which was identical to the Ford OE wires and came with 4 shielded wires (not just 2). I think the other 2 shielded wires went to cylinders 4 and 8.

 

[Craigerz]

Guess I need a shield on all of them because I burned #6

I am trying to get it as close to the factory routing as possible and this is all I could find. Hope someone can verify that it the right one.

1996 Ford Explorer Spark Plug Diagram With Array Images. Just another WordPress site

Incase someone can’t see it

 

[fastpakr]

Subscribing because I didn't take a picture of the stock routing, and the way I've got them on the Ranger swap looks all sorts of goofy IMO.

 

[koda2000]

Working from my memory (which is no longer the greatest, but the truck isn't here).

The driver's side wires cyl 7 & 8 run along the bottom edge of the valve cover. 5 & 6 I think come up from bottom but all are held in place by these weird plastic wire retainers that sit on special bolts with posts on top.

On the passenger side 1 & 2 are pretty simple and I know 3 or 4 ran under the throttle body along the top edge of the valve cover. One of the 3-4 wires was right up against the firewall and was very difficult to put back correctly until I figured out that you could just lift the retainer off the special posted bolt.

The weird plastic wire retainer clips are used all over the place, some on special bolts with posts some not.

The plastic wire retainers are very difficult to open once closed and are prone to breaking due to brittleness with age. I only broke 1 trying to open it.

Doing this job to factory spec will make you swear and bleed. I still have to go back and re-route the plug wires on my '01 EB 5.0L because the previous owner's mechanic replaced the plug wires using total poetic license for the routing. It's functional but looks like hell. I hope all the clips are still there. If it ever get's below 90F in GA I plan to try to tackle that job.

 

[Craigerz]

Well I ended up getting it done. After I cursed RockAuto for only sending me 8 wires and no coil wire for about 5 mins :/

I used the 2 orange plugs with the heat shields on 3 and 7. The longer of the 2 shielded ones on 7.

I used the longest of the wires on 8. And the shortest on 5. The second shortest I ran to 1. That should get it close.

The routing was pretty much just like the diagram and how Koda described. 1 and 2 behind the alt, 3 and 4 under the TB 7 and 8 along the top of the valve covers. The coil pack diagram helped the most. I would take pictures but you can’t really see much.

 

[koda2000]

Coil wire? There isn't any coil wire.

 

[fastpakr]

I think he was making fun of himself when posting that.

 

[koda2000]

I think he was making fun of himself when posting that.

Yeah, I thought it was either that or he was maybe working on something from the last century.

 

[Craigerz]

Well I didn't like the way I routed wire 3. After looking at the diagram I did do it wrong. I was running out of daylight so I will fix it when I get home.

And yeah my F-250 shill had a cap and rotor, God bless this distributor less ignition. Despite burning a wire, that was my fault and nothing to do with the system, I love this thing.