Here are some pics of the plug itself and the mangled coil pack (broken off of mount). Notice the nice 0.00 gap on plug (hey at least it didn't break off and weld itself to the piston!).



Here's the Valley of Death:

 

The good side:



The bad side (notice the discoloration (soot?) on this side compared to the very clean passenger side):

 

Here's where the coil pack snapped off from its mounting point (thank god the plug didn't bounce off the hood):



Here's the new head:



I will post more pics of old head later...

 

Miscellaneous pics - doesn't look like too much oil build-up and residue after 10K miles, but that is my subjective opinion. BTW, I always fill up with 6 quarts.

 

Excellant pics Ben. Thank you for your time and trouble--appreciate it .

Dan

 

OK, I just looked at the old head and it was amazing - there were NO threads to be found at all! The steel threads on the plug itself seem fine, but the softer aluminum threads on the head went bye bye (pics are coming, but there's literally not much to see)!

In the meantime, here are 2 pics of the block and pistons. Does the top of the piston look ok? It looks ok to me, but what do I know...

 

Actually, the pistons look pretty darn clean. Is your truck chipped? Too clean? i.e. possible lean setup, probably not. When you're too lean the pistons get shiney. I'm not an expert, though.

 

Nah, mine is all stock except for the Bassani. My tailpipes are pretty black though. I have 11K miles now, but I don't know what my pistons should look like anyway... as long as there are no chew marks I guess they're probably ok.

 

Hey with the blower and intake off it looks like changing the plugs could be much easier

And yea, with the exception of the bad cylinder the rest of the heads look a little to clean.

 

Could you post a picture of the Chamber side of the heads, and the exhaust ports?

Thanks!

 

LightningTruck, I will try and get some pics of the old head on here soon... it's sitting on some rags in the bed of my truck, right behind the cab and behind the blower and other bits and pieces (kind of hard to access right now underneath my bed cover when I want to pull it out and flip it over, etc.). I would roll the cover off and try and lift it out, but I'd be afraid my oily fingers would slip and I'd drop it on the truck or my foot.

 

BE SURE THE TECH CHECKS THAT ALL THE OIL PLUGS ARE IN THE BACK SIDE OF THE HEAD BEFORE HE PUTS IT ON!!!! Several people have had head replacements and had oil blown all over their engine compartment...

When did those TR6s go in and who put them in? When the trucks running again, retorque the plugs after ~500 miles.

 

Do the new Ford heads not come with oil plugs out of the crate? I will check and remind the dealer about this.

The TR-6's were put in by the dealer (about 4,000 miles ago) when they were diagnosing a rough idle/vibration (that turned out to be exhaust vibration). The tech claims he checked the plug tightness a week before this one blew (before they decided it was time to replace all the lifters/rollers they tried to check all the easy stuf like plug tightness and exhaust leaks). The more I look at it, the less likely it seems the plug was slowly backing out (this would have probably left the deepest threads in the head intact, but they're all missing). But then again, how often does a plug pop out anyway. I would think the ticking sound would have been getting progressively louder if it was backing out... but it didn't seem to - it just suddenly went BANG. My ears probably couldn't distinguish between the ticking at 3 threads vs. 5 threads so who knows...

 

The plug has has like ten threads and the head has like 4 (yikes)! The plug has to back out a long way before the last thread is out of the head threads and the whole time it has hot gas blasting around it and it's rocking back and forth etc. I'd guess that they really don't have to back out very far before they weaken those 4 threads and tear them all off.

I'm having my doubts about your dealer. If they don't get the plug torque right for this head they either leave them too loose or tighten them too much and weaken the head threads...

 

Ah, I see what you're saying about the plug backing out.

If the dealer messes up the plug torque on this head... I don't even want to think about that at this point. I may go in there and torque them myself. What is the actual torque supposed to be? And don't tell me "finger tight." All the archive posts have said hand-tighten them due to clearances, and give an extra 1/16 turn for good measure but don't overtighten either. Is this correct?