1995 Chevy C1500 spark plug change

[czbrian]

I purchased a 1995 Chevrolet C1500 with the 4.3L v6 and 114K miles on it. I'm leaving it at my parent's house for my dad to use as a backup truck now that his 2011 F150 has over 200K miles. Any down time for his truck is lost revenue and also this one can stay pretty clean and organized on the inside in case my mom wants to ride along with him somewhere.

First thing I did was change the oil of course and used some M1 10w30 HM with a Fram TG. Decided to check out the spark plugs next and based on pulling the 1st plug, decided to change them all using a set of NGK vPower since that is what Advance Auto had in stock. I have a set of wires, distributor cap, coil and rotor on order from Amazon now.

The truck was running ok but I think the plugs looked pretty bad. What do you think of their condition? Gap was definitely out of spec. I actually didn't get to drive it after replacing them since I was running out of time to get back to Houston so I'm interested to see how it runs after a full tune up.

 

[ls1mike]

It was time.

 

[CharBaby]

V-Power are good plugs. They're not plat's like the GM OE's but better that what you removed.

 

[Jason_Michaels]

Good idea on changing those plugs.

 

[bullwinkle]

That angled center electrode is never a good sign, you did the right thing by changing them. Good for another 50K! I bet those ACs were original.

 

[Chris142]

The old plugs were worn out. A couple show sign of oil which is pretty normal for a 20+ yr old engine.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Somebody sure got their money's worth outta those plugs...

 

[slacktide_bitog]

It was definitely time to change them.

 

[nthach]

It was more than due.

The distributors on these have a habit of stripped screw holes when the cap is changed, there are billet distributors and other things to solve this. How's the intake manifold gaskets holding up?

 

[czbrian]

Originally Posted by nthach
It was more than due.

The distributors on these have a habit of stripped screw holes when the cap is changed, there are billet distributors and other things to solve this. How's the intake manifold gaskets holding up?


I'll keep that in mind when I go to change the distribution cap. Hopefully I don't have to go the route replacing a distributor at this point.

I think the intake manifold gasket is ok. The engine was running smooth at idle, accelerating, cruising... starts up quick. Coolant level is full and looks clean but the seller could have filled up with fresh coolant before I bought it for all know. I haven't driven it that much yet (about 160 miles).

 

[wtd]

I had to have the distributor changed out on my 98 K3500 with the 7.4L because of cracked out screw holes that wouldn't allow the cap to stay screwed down. My 98 K1500 still has the original distributor but I'm sure it's cracked too. One way to help the plastic ones from cracking out is to run a tap down the screw hole to remove the remnants of the thread locker from the cap screws so the new screws can screw in easier.

As far as the intake gaskets go, I've had to have them changed three times on the 5.7L in my K1500 in only 136,000 miles and the only way I caught it the last two times was because I had oil analysis done which showed coolant in the oil and that the level in the overflow was slowly going down. The oil looked clean the entire time. There was no external leaking the last two times.

 

[clinebarger]

A 1995 TBI 4.3L would not have a plastic distributor or the failure prone plastic frame intake gaskets. Not that the steel-core composite intake gaskets on these don't fail/rot-out around the coolant passages with age/neglect!

They also didn't come with platinum plugs from the factory.

 

[udidwht]

Originally Posted by clinebarger
A 1995 TBI 4.3L would not have a plastic distributor or the failure prone plastic frame intake gaskets. Not that the steel-core composite intake gaskets on these don't fail/rot-out around the coolant passages with age/neglect!

They also didn't come with platinum plugs from the factory.

Correct. They came with copper core plugs....likely Autolite plugs.

 

[clinebarger]

Originally Posted by udidwht
Originally Posted by clinebarger
A 1995 TBI 4.3L would not have a plastic distributor or the failure prone plastic frame intake gaskets. Not that the steel-core composite intake gaskets on these don't fail/rot-out around the coolant passages with age/neglect!

They also didn't come with platinum plugs from the factory.

Correct. They came with copper core plugs....likely Autolite plugs.


It would have had AC copper plugs from the factory......The one's in the pictures may be original?

And yes it's AC Spark Plugs as ACDelco spark plugs didn't exist yet.