There are easier things in this world to do than change spark plugs on Explorers

[93Blue2door]

Ok it took me about two hours to change the plugs and wires. As suggested I went in through the wheel well to get that tough one out. I used old leather gloves to save my hands. I used bosche platinums gapped to a tight .054 and motorcraft wires. It doesn't idle as smooth as I was hoping it would. One of my concerns is I may not have been able to get the boots pressed on the plugs all the way. Talk about needing fiongertips of Iron. How can I be sure they popped on all the way withoout removing them again? I did smear the inside of the boots with dielectric grease though. The engine has 126,000 miles on it and so far I've cleaned the MAF and done this. Could something else be giving it a rough idle? By the way the performance seems good and I still need to put the techron in.

 

[sink]

Someone back me up whether this is a bad idea or not. Its just an idea. You could have it running and pull one wire at a time from the coil to listen how much change it makes. Then if you had one that didn't affect it much compared to the others, go after it only.

 

[93Blue2door]

Haha you are awesome, I had a friend suggest that to me last night. Today I went at it and did one at a time which was risky - sparks arched from the plug to the coil but i was wearing gloves. Anyway the engine just ended up running worse after I pulled each one at a time. So I went about regapping them. I tell you the second time you do something it's ten times easier. Knowledge is power I tell ya. Anyway, I regapped the plugs to about .057 and dicovered one of the boots hadn't been seated properly because the blob of grease I had put in the day before was not smeared. So put the regapped plugs back in and made sure the boots were seated properly with the little snap sound they make. Voila. That seems to have cured the rough idle and I have to say MY PERFORMANCE IS BACK! There is still a little wobble in the Engine though and I'm going to try to put techron in, also I have to change out the bad thermostat and drain the fluid. Maybe I'm just extremely picky and want the engine to run as smooth as a jaguar. Am I being picky?