5.4L F150 engine noise

obullfish

obullfish

Carolina Trail Blazers
Joined
Nov 21, 2011
Location
Candler N.C.
Well after 2+ years of trying to figure out a tic / knock noise the mystery is finally solved. A little over 3 years ago I paid a mechanic shop to change the spark plugs in the truck and shortly after the noise started. I took the truck back to the mechanic about the noise and he said all these engines have the noise issues. He said it's the cam phasers or a manifold that's cracked and not to worry about it. Well I found a cracked manifold and replaced it but the noise was still there. So I took the truck to the dealership for service and asked a couple of mechanics there and they said it sounded like a loose plug to them. So I took it back to the shop that changed the plugs and told him that I felt like it was a loose plug and he went off saying if I knew so much why did I not do it myself. Well last week I took the truck to a friends shop and asked him to fix the noise no matter the cost. Lucky me he found the problem and fixed it in less than an hour. 2 loose plugs that the original mechanic swore on his life were tight and was a total Dick about the issue. Can't wait to take him the bill and a big ole FU when I have time next week.
 
:popcorn: I'd like to hear how this turns out. Sounds like the original mechanic is a little high strung. I'm betting his hair will be on fire.
 
Well he's been a mechanic for my wife's family and their businesses for about 30 years. This is the second run in I've had with his ass and come next week it'll be our last. He screwed up one of their work trucks a few months back and told them to go trade it cause it couldn't be fixed. One way or another I'll get mine whether he likes it or not and he will surely get his. Hell I was so put out about the truck it's only seen 7k miles in 3 years cause I couldn't stand to hear the SOB run.
 
I need to do the plugs on my 5.4 as well. Way overdue. I'm gonna let someone else do it because I know I'll snap everyone of them. You know it's a shit design when there's a tool specifically for extracting broken 5.4 plugs.
 
Wes said:
I need to do the plugs on my 5.4 as well. Way overdue. I'm gonna let someone else do it because I know I'll snap everyone of them. You know it's a shit design when there's a tool specifically for extracting broken 5.4 plugs.
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The lisle tool makes getting the broken ones out easy. It's easy enough I don't even care if one breaks at work. It takes like an extra five minutes to pull it out. I don't know if anyone rents the tool, but you may find someone you could borrow it from so you don't have to buy it.

Most times I don't have any break at all. I get the engine warm and hit them with a 3/8 impact. If you use a regular ratchet you can tell if they'll come out usually by the sound. If they squeak and groan they're usually coming out. The quiet ones are usually breaking off.

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I guess AeroKroil might be a good product to use to soak instead of the top engine cleaner ford recommends in their TSB. AeroKroil claims to penetrate gaps as small as 1 millionth of an inch.. IDK if its quite that good, but definitely superior to all the pen oils that I have tried.
 
Fabrik8 said:
So you're going to send a bill to a mechanic regarding a repair that was done 3 years ago? Good luck with that.
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Is this worth any of your guys' time? It's just a damn spark plug. A high schooler at the counter of autozone could have nailed this down.


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keep in mind, on pre 2003 5.4's the thread depth is too short and if i remember correctly, aluminum.

one of the problems the 5.4s had was blowing out spark plugs. DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN THEM!!! you strip the socket.
 
Update to the story.

Pulled out all my records on the truck and it has been 33 months since the plugs were changed and just shy of 32 months since the first time I took it back to the shop for the noise. So in my mind the issue was caused by shit work and the mechanic being to proud to double check his work.

Today was his lucky day for me to stop by and hand him the repair bill for fixing the loose plugs. Lucky for him he had 6 customers there at the time so I was respectful and asked to speak to him in private. Well I'll let you guess how that went. Not to good and told me I lost my mind if I thought he was going to take another mechanics word on the issue.

What he failed to realize was I can be the biggest asshole in the world if you screw me and piss me off. So in front of all his customers that were there dropping off vehicles for repair I showed him just how big of an asshole I can be. In the end I got my $$$ out of his ass and he lost a business account for the wife's family and 2 out of the 6 customers that were there walked out. I know that for the amount of money I was out this is drastic approach but it might save someone else getting screwed by him worse.
 
Unfortunately this is really all too common... Most of the shops around here I only know by the sorry work I see. I'll be like, who did that to your vehicle? Xxxx... Oh wow, thought they were reputable.
 
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