First DIY spark plug change

[ephantmon]

Bought the plugs, necessary socket and extension, anti-seize and dielectric grease this week. A friend came over who has vastly more experience than me working on cars and we got to work.

It wasn't bad, though the first coil we pulled was a bastard to get out, the rest were easier. The old plugs looked fine, though the gap was a couple thousandths larger than the recommended 0.040. The whole thing took probably an hour.

Occurences of note: As we finished and were putting everything back in place my friend dropped one of the nuts that holds the cooland reservoir in place. It didn't drop through to the ground, we couldn't find it in the engine bay, it is still MIA. We DID find some random other nut floating around though, I wonder what that was originally on?

The original reason I wanted to do this, beyond increasing my knowledge and know-how was that a mechanic at the dealership recommended it SUPPOSEDLY because my plugs "looked like they should be replaced". All plugs were clean with no fouling whatsoever.

Big thanks to the person who posted the link to the youtube video showing how it's all done. That was a tremendous help! I'm sure many of you have done this before, but it was exciting for me and something that I can now do for WAY cheaper than a shop, especially a dealership.

 

[desertkj]

Glad it all went well. I just changed mine and my Jeep has been showing a 1 mpg average increase, so hopefully you also get a noticeable performance increase. Out of curiosity, why did you have the coolant reservoir removed? We've never had to loosen anything but the spark plugs themselves.

 

[BluPhant]

Glad to hear it worked for you. Listening to him say Airbox on that vid still cracks me up. I need to do mine soon. Maybe this weekend if the gods smile on me

-Blu

 

[ephantmon]

extra clearance

We moved the coolant reservoir for extra elbow room. The plug closest to the firewall on the relative passenger side is tricky to get to if the coolant is still in place. Moving the reservoir only required removal of two nuts (insert pun) and two hoses.

 

[C.W.]

Good for you. I just had mine changed to autolite platinums, and my mechanic not only told me that they were "overkill" but that I wouldn't need to change my spark plugs for another 100,000 miles.

I kept my mouth shut.

I did notice an immediate improvement, though, even though no plugs were fouled and the gap was slightly off.

 

[flair1111]

but did you change the ones in the tire cover??

 

[jp1]

I also just did my first plug change after a tick over 64K miles. Wasn't too terrible. The last one near the firewall on the passenger put up a fight, but I got it.

Thanks to flair1111 for the informative, and entertaining, how-to vid. I didn't get the plugs in the tire cover, but I did find the elusive ones in the headliner.

Also, here's a pic of the one of stock plugs that I took out.

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[tjkj2002]

Good for you. I just had mine changed to autolite platinums, and my mechanic not only told me that they were "overkill" but that I wouldn't need to change my spark plugs for another 100,000 miles.

I kept my mouth shut.

I did notice an immediate improvement, though, even though no plugs were fouled and the gap was slightly off.

Just because you have platnium plugs in does not mean you can go 100,000 miles before they need to be changed,they will be shot after 30,000 or so miles also.You should change your plugs every 30,000 no matter what plugs you use to ensure maximum performance from them to keep your engine running good,just like you should change the fuel filter at least every 30,00 miles also.