Anyone changed plugs/wires on a 2000 Taurus?

[panthermike]

My brother's newly acquired Taurus needs a tune-up, not sure if its ever had one. Mileage is 160,500.

Anyways, the front three will be a breeze. The back three look very hard. Some of the websites i've checked say you have to remove the intake manifold.....the motor is the vulcan, not the DOHC, not sure if it makes a difference.

Has anyone tackled this job? I'm debating telling him to have the mechanic do it. I wonder why it's so much harder? My sister has a 98' w/ the exact motor and it's not nearly as hard(took 1.5 hours, plugs/wires).

Thanks in advance.

 

[SuperDave456]

I changed out all of that on my '02 Taurus with the Vulcan 2-3 months ago.
It was fairly straight forward.
I was around 148,000 at the time and just rolled over 150,000 miles earlier this month. It is the 2nd time it had been done on this car, the first time was around 50,000. The reason that it was brought to attention is that it started sending a code where it was misfiring on the 3rd cylinder. There was lots of hesitation and jittering upon startup.
I pulled the receipts and figured that it had gone 98,300 between tune ups.

I did use a universal joint and a 6" extension to get some of the back ones out, but I never even thought of removing the intake. You can get to the back ones. You will need that universal joint, a good sparkplug socket, and a 4-6 inch extension along with a flashlight.

The big issue I had was prying open the OEM sparkplug holders. Those things open TOWARDS the engine on my car. Study the design of the plastic hold downs on the front 3 cylinders, the wire hold downs on the back 3 are tough.
If you don't break the holders they will definately go another 100,000 miles.

I used the boch wires from AutoZone as they had more shielding than the cheaper brand they carry there (less likely to arc through the shielding in time), and I got NGK platinum tipped plugs. They only had one powerpack to choose from.

Hope this helps.

 

[panthermike]

That does help, makes me feel as though the job is manageable .

May I ask how long it took you for the job?

 

[tomcat27]

I recently helped a friend replace the plugs on his wife's Taurus. we did it w/out removing the manifold. the back 3 are no fun, but certainly possible - in fact, I made him remove the back wires, then I removed the plugs and reinstalled the new ones. he's no mechanic - just determined

 

[Familyguy]

While it is "possible" to do the job without removing the upper intake, it is a supreme pain in the rump to do so. For the cost of an upper intake manifold gasket, you cut the time down from a couple of knucklebleeding hours to about 20 minutes of fairly straightforward remove/replace action. I've got fairly big hands so I opted to pop the upper manifold on my folks' Taurus.

Best,

 

[tig1]

For a short time I had a 2000 Taurus with that engine. I did take the intake man. off. Was very easy then. Biggest problem with taking the Man off was the EGR tube need to be dis connected. When I tried to lossen the fitting the tube snapped into and had to buy a new one.

 

[04SE]

Put a jack under each side of the front end and raise it up. Now you can crawl under and reach the back three. It was MUCH easier/faster for me to change the back three from the bottom on my 2004 SE. I have done it three times now and the last time I did the back three in 15 minutes, including jacking the car up.

Also, do yourself a favor and return the NGK plugs and get some OEM Motorcraft plugs. My Vulcan was VERY picky about plugs. Hence my changing them three times...

 

[panthermike]

I like the way that sounds, I have some ramps that could make the job real easy. Thanks for the heads up on that, perhaps next weekend i'll do this.

 

[SuperDave456]

Good to know about the Vulcan designs being picky with plugs. What issues did you have with the NGK plugs?
The car is a daily driver and I have put quite some time on it and haven't had any problems.

The largest problem that I had was those wire holders.
If it wasn't for their difficult design the job would have taken me 20 minutes. But with the difficult positioning of some of the wire holders on the back of the engine, the fact that I had not put the car up on ramps, and that I took my time it probably took me 2 hours.
I had nothing else to do that Sat. Morning.

 

[ThirdeYe]

That's weird that your engine is so picky with the NGK plugs, my sister's Escort ZX-2 runs exactly the same with the NGK Platinums as it did with the Autolites I replaced. Different engine though... just found it odd. I'm liking the NGKs in my Acura.

 

[04SE]

Originally Posted By: panthermike
I like the way that sounds, I have some ramps that could make the job real easy. Thanks for the heads up on that, perhaps next weekend i'll do this.


Just be sure to use either an air compressor or the smallest can of compressed air for a computer you can find to clean the area/hole around the plug before you remove them. My back three had a TON of dust/dirt/rust in them when I blew them out. You do not want that getting into the head or on the threads of your new plugs.

Also, you might have to remove the plug wires for the back three from the top and then change the plugs from the bottom. You can pull the plug wires from the bottom, but it is easier to do it from the top on the back three. Kind of a preference thing. Mine were no trouble to do everything from the bottom but on a friends car I had to pull the wires from the top and then crawl under and do the plugs.


Originally Posted By: SuperDave456
Good to know about the Vulcan designs being picky with plugs. What issues did you have with the NGK plugs?
The car is a daily driver and I have put quite some time on it and haven't had any problems.

The largest problem that I had was those wire holders.
If it wasn't for their difficult design the job would have taken me 20 minutes. But with the difficult positioning of some of the wire holders on the back of the engine, the fact that I had not put the car up on ramps, and that I took my time it probably took me 2 hours.
I had nothing else to do that Sat. Morning.


Knock on wood, my plug wires came off easily and look great with 98,000 miles on them. None of them were blackened or showed signs of failure. I don't know if all Vulcans are picky or just mine. With NGK plugs, I had a stutter in the RPM while accelerating, at all levels of throttle. It is hard to explain. It did not misfire per se, as much as the RPMs would be steadily climbing and then just drop 300-400 RPMs and then it would just start climbing again. It was weird, really weird. It did not feel like a hesitation, misfire and did not have a noticeable loss in power. I had this with NGK and Bosch plugs. I finally put the Motorcraft plugs in and it disappeared. My local dealership had no clue and the guy at O'Reillys was clueless as well (but that is normal).

Originally Posted By: ThirdeYe
That's weird that your engine is so picky with the NGK plugs, my sister's Escort ZX-2 runs exactly the same with the NGK Platinums as it did with the Autolites I replaced. Different engine though... just found it odd. I'm liking the NGKs in my Acura.


The Vulcan is a very reliable engine with few known problems except the CPS failure and the oil pan gasket is guaranteed to leak. I was surprised that mine gave me trouble with the plugs until I put the Motorcraft plugs in her. Nobody seemed to be able to explain the troubles I was having. If putting Motorcraft plugs in did not fix it I was going to replace the coil.

 

[1kickbuttranger]

The ignition system requires either double platinums (autolite) or finewire (motorcraft) plugs for it to work properly.

I wish they still made mc double plats..

 

[panthermike]

I'm considering having him take it in now. Only reason is that my mechanic says only 92.50 to install both the plugs and wires. Probably worth it at that price, plus it's not my own money anyways .

 

[PandaBear]

Maybe this is too late of a reply. The job is very very easy if your hand is medium or small size. I use a spark plug remover tool ($3 from Kragen) and remove the plugs in minutes after pulling out the wire. No need to remove the manifold or go under the car or jack it up.

The plugs I use is the Autolite double platinum. If you want you can probably use single platinum on the original side with single, but they are so cheap you probably waste your time figuring out which side is single and which side is reverse / double. About $3-4 at parts store each, may be cheaper if you use rebate.

You are going to waste more time going into the mechanics/dealerships to get it done than doing it at the parking lot of a part store.