For the past several months I've noticed a ticking from my T-bird ('87 3.8L). My best guess was an exhaust manifold leak. However, like all things car related, I am a horrible procrastinator. Also, the passenger side O2 sensor was getting lazy - so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone. 90% of the effort of getting to the O2 sensor is also needed to remove the manifold.
Fast forward to Sunday night. I was driving home from Birmingham after watching Auburn beat Alabama for the 6th time in a row. :shakeass:
I exited off the interstate and on to surface roads. A light ahead turned red and I let off the glass and idled up to it. It turned green as I came upon the intersection and I went back to the gas. At that exact moment I heard a *POP* and then a very loud *BAH*BAH*BAH*BAH*BAH that varied with engine rpm. I thought to myself "Oh snap, the gasket blew plum out!" and kept on going. Driving into my neighborhood with an open exhaust at 11pm was quite uncomfortable. I dashed into my house and waited a few minutes until I felt the eyes of my neighbors turn to more mundane things.
I popped the hood and took a look around, but found nothing amiss at first. A further look (and feel) around netted the #2 spark plug - still attached to the wire - dangling about the engine bay. :mad: I changed the plugs 25 months ago and 16,500 miles ago!!!
The other plugs were all tight. :( Oh well, could be worse.
This link explains what happened.. (http://"http://jeremy.justgotowned.com")
thats alright we all have done things that we can't explain.
I once drove from buffalo to daytona with a socket set and ratchet on my radiator support. don't remember leaving it there.
I once pulled my radiator and found my uncle's SnapOn ratcheting 3/8 extension under it.
You spelled Jeremy wrong.....Reverse ownage....
does that link have a girl getting bit on her y in one of the pics or am i crazy? lol, i saw that and was like, what the eff?
spelled "ever" wrong too.
thats odd. My 3.8 blew the number two plug and i had to run a thread chaser in to retap. My friend has a cfi 3.8 as well and that number two blew out last week.
maybe there something to number 2/5 position with respect to machine work.
Fords aluminum heads=junk. We've had to helicoil 4 4.6/5.4 spark plug holes.
Check to make sure your heads still have threads.
There was a little bit of aluminum on the plug threads, but it went in ok.
The upside is that it runs better and my highway mileage has gone up 3+ mpg.
This is why I have GT40 iron heads on my 5.0.......................plus I couldn't afford aluminium heads
Fixed it... I was tired last night.