I bought them from O’Reillys. And no we haven’t. It was running fine Wednesday. I didnt drive it at all yesterday and when I was driving to work this morning at 330am it started. So I haven’t had a chance to do anything
I believe so but I cant be 100% sure.
The hissing seemed to be pulsing, but I cant be 100% sure because I had to have the window down, so the window wouldn’t fog.
You better be %100 sure. Because if the plugs aren’t gapped properly, the engine will misfire.
Tester
Almost always the best plugs are the same make and model installed by the carmaker. Parts places often like to recommend something else “equivalent” or “better” or “longer lasting.” Often the correct plugs will come gapped correctly, but that should be measured just to make sure.
On many V6 engines it’s a big job to access the plugs on the back, so damaging one while getting it into place, or getting it in incorrectly, is quite possible.
You always go back and check your work. 90% it was something done wrong or forgotten. I’ve been changing plugs since I was a little kid but last time I had to take it to a shop to have it finished. A couple crossed wires and one that I absolutely could not get the leverage to get it back on tight. After that I just had them do the plug change and guess what, he had to replace a wire or two because they came apart when he pulled them off. So stuff happens. Sorry about no money but if a problem cannot be easily found, it’s best just to have someone finish the job.
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You have not mentioned that your check engine light is on. A misfire would set the check engine light. If the check engine light is not on, look for a vacuum leak. If the check engine light is on, go to Advance or Auto Zone and get the codes read for free. They may even tell you which cylinder is misfiring.The code(s) should be in the form of P followed by 4 numbers.
My guess, the spark plug replacement work disturbed some of the high voltage wiring. Those are the wires from the distributor cap to the spark plugs. As they age they get brittle and can be damaged just in the process of removing them from the plugs. If nothing’s obvious, what I’d do at this point is simply replace all those wires, and the distributor cap, and the ignition rotor.
There’s a couple of simple things you could try. If you can get the hissing noise to appear with your truck idling in the driveway, maybe by rev’ing the engine a little first, you could use a length of old garden hose as a stethoscope to see if you can narrow down the location where it is coming from. If you can figure out a way to look at the engine compartment as the engine idles in total darkness, you may be able to see sparks jumping around. If so, that would be an important clue.
Common problems that occur when replacing spark plugs
- Something piston-un-friendly drops into the cylinder when you remove the plug. I use a vacuum to suck out anything that might be down in the hole first, before removing the spark plug.
- Cross threading a plug causes leaks (mentioned above)
- Incorrect torque applied to the plug during installation.
- Spark plug cables put onto wrong plugs
- Spark plug cables routed incorrectly. Route them the same as they were. Running sp wires too far in parallel can cause the spark from one to jump to the other, or could cause the spark to jump to ground.
Common sense says that if you want to continue to diy-repair and maintain your own truck, you need a code-reader to read the diagnostic codes, and you need at the minimum need to own a Haynes or Chilton’s repair manual.
She replaced plugs and wires - we assume they are new.
Hey thanks everybody. The check light was on, had been on for a while. But it started flashing to show the engine was misfiring. My trucks at the shop right now going to be looked at on Tuesday