This is a X-post from: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...t=39604&page=2
Thought I would start a new thread due to the engine is no longer knocking, but a spark plug from the rear bank was ejected from the head. The spark plugs threads (last 4) were rolled over.

Well, I just got back into town today from a week of being gone and just playing phone tag with the dealer (I work longer hours than they do). They were saying the spark plug on the back head broke off and what they were saying and how they were describing it to me just did not add up.

After my eye view of it today I seen that the spark plug seemed to have backed out (unthreaded) and then got finally pushed past the cyl head threads (rolled the threads) from compression pressure. Once the spark plug was popped up and out the heat melted the spark plug boot on the coil (it was still bolted down).

The dealer tried to re-tap the threads with a M14x1.25 and since the threads were pushed upwards he could not get a good bite on the tap (well duh!). This then concluded the dealer expertise on fixing my car other than to pull the entire engine out (22 hours labor @ $110/hr) and ship it to a machine shop or pull the back cyl head at 35 hours labor and take it to a machine shop.

The dealer is convinced there is a steel sleeve that the spark plug sits down in. I am not convinced and I could not get any magnet while down in the spark plug cavity to grab. Besides why would Ford/Jaguar go through the trouble of this steel sleeve and still have the spark plug threads be Aluminum?

I am confident these threads can be re-tapped and replaced with a Keensert locking thread insert. I may have to do the work myself or I am planning on seeing if this machine shop can come out to the car and install this.

The dealer said that that form of repair is "beyond what the do there" meaning if there is no parts to replace they stay away from it. Keenserts have been around for some 40-years and at dealers as well.

Anyone have this ever happen to them?

 

Not in the X, but in my old F150. A helicoil kit from the local auto parts store took care if it with no drama. My buddy's Jeep just did the same thing last week, same deal, local mechanic put a helicoil in for him. I'd at least give that a try.

 

Not on a Jag but on some bikes. Who changed the plugs or were they the originals? If they were the originals and you have good service history I'd contact Jaguar to see if they would do a good faith head replacement. I totally understand why the dealer won't do a helicoil or the like as they don't want you coming back with an issue and then have to do it again for free. In reality to do the work you would need to pull the head anyways otherwise you'll have plenty of nasty metal shards in there. I honestly don't know why it takes 30 hours to r&r a head though

Oh and if by chance you did have the plugs changed I would be calling the garage that did it asking for where your lawyer should send the bill.

 

I changed the plugs myself 2 years ago and some 17,000 miles ago. There was zero problems with the RandR. I changed them out at about 70k miles per Jaguar recommendation. The Jaguar shop stated they had never pulled a head before on a X-type so it may in fact take them 35 hours. They were wanting to pull the entire engine out and send it to a machine shop which would take around 20 hours. I am waiting to hear back from the 3rd party machine shop and make an appt to have them physically look at the car before entertaining any engine or head pulling. Oh and the 35 hour book rate was just for one head not both.

 

I just took a look at my Alldatadiy.com account for the labor estimate on head gasket replacement. Alldata typically gets its procedures directly from manufacturer service literature, so this should be the same as the dealer's labor estimate. They typically show "warranty" hours - for how much the manufacturer will reimburse the dealer for their efforts - and "standard" estimates - for how long this should/could take in real life.

Well, Alldata is showing 19.1/22.9 hours to R&R the right bank, 19.3/23.3 hours for the left bank, and 20.9/26.6 hours for both. BTW, that was for the auto trans version of my 2004 3.0L. The manual-equipped car takes a little less time.

I also looked at the procedure in Alldata. Granted that it's been about 20 years since I last pulled a cylinder head, but I don't see what should take so long about this job. It's like there's a decimal point out of place in the labor estimate.

 

CHas, while I have not heard this happening with the Jaguar heads, it is a common problem with the 5.4L engine made by Ford. I had this happen to my Expedition. I used a product called "Timesert" to fix my truck. I'm sure they have a product for the Jag. It was a $400 kit, but it had everything you need to fix the problem. With this kit, you end up removing the old threads, tapping new threads, and then installing a new sleeve that you lock into place. This can be done with the heads on the motor. I decided not to as I wasn't comfortable putting shavings into the cylinders since I was doing all 8 cylinders on my truck at the same time (done to remove a design flaw in that motor). But, I have a lot of friends that have done a single cylinder leaving the head on the motor with no issues. With the design of this kit, you should be able to do it to the Jag with the engine still in.

THe biggest advice that I can tell you is if you use one of the sleeve kits, use a little bit of tygon on the end of vacuum hose and make sure to vacuum the cylinder out very well. Then you shouldn't have any issues in the future.

 

Thermo, indeed I have heard of timeserts, the Jag dealer had never heard of them or Keenserts.

I was looking at this site for a kit: http://www.timesert.com/html/sparkplug.html

Rothe, thank you for the alladata shop labor times for R&R the heads. It makes me wonder where this dealer is getting their estimates. I verified that this was for one head and not both and they stated it was just for one and my X-type has a manual trans.

I am waiting to hear back from the local machine shop to see if they will come and inspect the car and put in a threaded insert such as a timesert or keensert.

Will keep you all posted. Thank you.

 

I had 2 (rear) sparkplugs (1&2) blow loose a few months ago on my 2.5 xtype a few months ago,just like yours. My garage called in specialist help and the mech fitted 2 spark plug helicoils to repair the threads - its running sweetly now. They didnt remove the engine, but had to remove the inlet manifold , as mine is the 2.5 engine.

BTW mine happened 6 months after the 70k service where another garage had replaced all spark plugs (allegedly securely!!)

 

Edwink, thank you very much for sharing and congrats on your first post...glad to have you here!

I am hoping the machine shop that has been in contact with the Jag dealer will do something similar. The dealer told this machine shop that there are steel sleeves down in the spark plug bores which is entirely inaccurate and simply not true. The dealers basis for this was that there is a dark looking ring around the taper seat down in the bore. Well the reason it is dark is that the spark plugs blackened coating rubbed off on the area when torqued down. I took a screwdriver and scraped away this dark coating and showed the Jag tech with a telescoping magnet that there is no steel because the magnet did not attract to anything. So hopefully the machine shop will be willing to come out and take a look at my car and perform a similar job.

According to JTIS and this is what I followed the spark plugs for the 2.5 and 3.0's have a 11ft/lbs torque spec. And this is what I torqued all my plugs too with a calibrated Snap-on torque wrench.

Edwink, did the shop that replaced your plugs honor the repair bill at all? And did the 3rd party specialist shop use for sure helicoils? If so, do you know what they did with the wire "tang" at the end of the helicoil?

 

Regarding the Helicoils, thats what they said and thats what the bill shows!

And no, I dont know what they did with the wire tang.

Sadly, the original shop havent honoured the bill - even though I believe they didnt tighten up the pugs properly - the ones that went were at the rear of the engine,and are difficult to get to at the best of times!!

 

Reading through some of the Ford truck boards that are prone to this very same problem the helicoil and timeserts seem to be popular fixes.

My plug that blew is #5 on the rear bank so currently, the upper intake manifold is off.

I am still contemplating if the 11ft/lbs torque spec is enough? Some of the Ford truck guys have been going to 15ft/lbs.

Anyone care to opine on this?

 

nothing like this, but as a high school project we had to do this. , but it was on a piece of metal, where we drilled, tapped, stripped the threads, re tapped. i though i would share this bit of useless info.

 

Chas, with the aluminum heads, it is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you go tighter on the plug (ie, higher torque), yes, it will seat the plug better. But, the down side is that you are putting more stress on the threads and therefore are putting them closer to a failure mechanism. With the Jaguar engines having 5 threads (as I recall) for the spark plug, going to 15 ft-lbs should be fine. With the Ford truck engines (specifically the 5.4L heads from the 97-03 engines), there was only 3 threads holding the spark plug in place in an all aluminum head. Needless to say, you don't do things just so, bye bye spark plug. I found this out the hard way on my Ford truck.

 

I had the same experience Thermo.

Chas are you talking about 15ftlbs on the helicoil (or whatever repair you use) plug or on all the others? I'd be a little leary on the damaged one to go too high, perhaps 12 or 13lbs...(just my opinion).

 

Chris X, if you have a Ford truck and ever blow out another spark plug, let me know. I have the Timesert kit for the Ford motors. I will mail you the kit. Then all you have to get is the inserts which run about $12 each. The kit I have has travelled to many interesting places.

 

Thanks Thermo, but I got rid of that sucker a few years ago. It actually was a great truck and that's really the only problem I had with it other than regular maintenance. My next truck will be a diesel though, doing much more towing these days.

Thanks again, very generous offer.

 

I am really glad I surfed into this thread. Although I am a mechanical engineer and have been doing selected car work since teenage-hood, I have not had the pleasure of having an aluminum head mistreat me like this. But if anything, I would likely be more guilty of over-torquing than too little and spitting out the spark plug. So I will watch that when I get to that point on my '03 X-type 2.5, and even more critical, I will have to also have to pay attention to that when replacing the plugs on my '97 Ford van 5.4L, which is just now getting to that point in its life.

 

SeTex, if you have any questions about the Van, let me know. I am a moderator for a Ford Truck club and do a lot with Ford Trucks. While it is not a tough job, it isn't as straight forward as you would wish. Let me know and I will give you all the info you want to know. Also, if you are interested in the club, PM me and I will pass on the site info to you. I have ported/polished the intake on my truck and have done a few other engine mods to improve the low end torque for the truck. Other members of the club have pushed their 5.4L motors to the extreme (seeing 800 hp motors is not uncommon).

 

Well, the Jaguar is back at my place now. The dealer refused to do any form of thread repair on the cylinder head and the 3rd party machine shop the dealer uses never returned my phone calls or emails. Sooo, I am taking it upon myself to do the repair. I ordered a "time-sert" solid threaded insert kit for M14x1.25 threads. I have the kit, some inserts, and now I just need another spark plug and some Loctite 266 for the insert along with some time.
I was expecting a great deal more from the dealer. I think they were paralyzed by not understanding what I wanted and what could be done (besides pulling my entire engine out) and also by liability hence the 3rd party machine shop. At $110/hr I expect some extraordinary service and to have greater technical insight than I. But alas, both were not so.
To be honest I rather do the work myself. I always have.
I will let you all know when the car is back up and running.

Thank you for all the responses! You guys are the best!

 

I'm not surprised they refused to do the fix that way. Probably just not worth it to them to attempt it that way. You could try an independent mechanic I suppose, but you seem to know what you are doing so give it a go!

Best of luck, yes keep us in the loop.