Coil cleaning pics

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Wild one

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Yea i know my picture taking abilities suck,lol

Hopefully you guys can tell how i go about cleaning up the coils from the pic's.

The first pic,is just a pic of everything disassembled.If your truck has the resistors under the spring in the coil towers,you'll want to remove them and clean them to,i don't have a coil handy with the resistors,so i can't show you a pic of them,but they're easy to see,as they'll come up closer to the top of the coil tower.If they're corroded in to the point they won't fall out with a good shake,you might have to drill a small hole in them,and then use a sheet metal screw turned into the hole to pull them out.If that's the case just throw them away,they didn't start using the resistors until about 2016,before that there was just the spring.The coils with-out the resistors do use a longer spring,so if you do toss them,you'll want to buy new boots,with the proper spring

The 2nd pic shows the differance in spring length after they've been cleaned and stretched
I always clean the springs up with my bench mounted grinders wire wheel,then i stretch the springs out about a 1/4" to 1/2".You can use pretty well anything you want as long as it cleans the corrosion off the springs.If the springs are in really bad shape,you can buy new springs and boots from Rock Auto

The 3rd pic shows the screw head in the coil towers you want to try and get as clean as possible.I've never been able to remove them,so you're stuck cleaning them in place
i use the red handled pic to scratch as much corrossion out of the tower as i can ,before i use the little Dremel carbon steel brushes to polish it up as much as i can.If you don't have a Dremel,a 3/8" drill either corded or cordless works just as well as a Dremel

The 4th pic shows where i put a light smear of Di-electric grease on the coil towers.I just use a finger to smear it around and coat the coil tower.The 1 tower already has the dab smeared around,the other tower shows roughly the amount i squeeze onto the tower before smearing it.I try and get it under the lip of the tower along with the tower itself.

The 5th pic is the little Dremel brushes i use,they're small enough ,they fit inside the coil tower easily.

The 6th pic shows the springs being reinserted back into the boots,i leave them sticking out slightly,as they'll push back to where they'll want to sit,as soon as you reinstall the boots onto the coil towers.Once the boots are installed,i usually give them a couple rotations to seat the spring onto the screw head in the tower

The 7th pic is showing how a pick and the Dremel brushes fit into the coil towers.

The 8th pic shows where to apply a very thin smear of di-electric grease to the plugs porcellin.Always apply it at the base of the porcellin,never put it inside the boot.Inside the boot can cause it to transfer onto the end terminal of the plug,where it can become an insulator. Di-electric grease is an insulator,and isn't great at conducting electricity so you want to keep it off the electrical contact points if possible






Hopefully this helps you guys out,if you plan to do some coil maintence when you do your sparkplug maintence
 

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Wild one

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This is a great writeup, thank you!

So is this something we should all be doing if our trucks are on the older side?
It usually doesn't hurt,lol .When you do your 100,000 mile plug swap,pull the boots off the coils and check the springs and contact points over for corrosion,if they're corroded,i'd clean everything up.
Usually the spring end that's against the resistor or screw head will be the one corroded, i've seen the whole spring and both ends corroded more then a few times.
I'm actually cleaning a buddies coils up for him this afternoon,they're off his 15 and i got lucky as his springs are only corroded on the coil end,but then again his truck only has 35,000 miles on it,and doesn't see any winter driving.
He's gonna put a 70 shot of nitrous on it,so he's going to a Denso 3381 copper plug,and he brought me his coils last night to clean up.
 

Hemi395

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Well, guess I'll add this to the list for my truck. Mine takes the copper plugs so 30k change intervals and I've changed the plugs 4 times now. However I've never thought to check the springs like this so thank you!
 
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Wild one

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Yep, good write up/info.
Hey when are we gonna get some pic's of the new toy J,i see it's in your avatar now,so spoil us with more pics of it.
Post some pic's of it in this section ,i'm sure i'm not the only one who wants to see some pics of it :waytogo: :Big Laugh:

 

_happy_

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I'm swapping plugs on my '12 5.7 with 62k miles tonight and found corrosion on my original coil packs. I was just about to order a set of Densos but found this thread. I already have new boots with the springs. I was concerned that this corrosion was also internal to the pack. Is this from moisture? Or dissimilar metal galvanization?

I'm going I try the Dremel brush tomorrow.

Quick question: I already torqued my new plugs. How do you apply dielectric grease if the plugs are already installed?
 

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Wild one

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I'm swapping plugs on my '12 5.7 with 62k miles tonight and found corrosion on my original coil packs. I was just about to order a set of Densos but found this thread. I already have new boots with the springs. I was concerned that this corrosion was also internal to the pack. Is this from moisture? Or dissimilar metal galvanization?

I'm going I try the Dremel brush tomorrow.

Quick question: I already torqued my new plugs. How do you apply dielectric grease if the plugs are already installed?
If you've already installed the plugs, use a toothpick or a Q-tip and apply a very thin smear of grease inside the boot,at the bottom.
 
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Wild one

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I'm swapping plugs on my '12 5.7 with 62k miles tonight and found corrosion on my original coil packs. I was just about to order a set of Densos but found this thread. I already have new boots with the springs. I was concerned that this corrosion was also internal to the pack. Is this from moisture? Or dissimilar metal galvanization?

I'm going I try the Dremel brush tomorrow.

Quick question: I already torqued my new plugs. How do you apply dielectric grease if the plugs are already installed?
Use a pick and scratch as much of the corrosion off that you can,then use the dremel brushes.You can spray a bit of contact cleaner inside the tower when you hit the screw heads with the brush,and it'll help get things clean,as yours are on the rough side,but with a bit of work,you should be able to bring them back to where they'll make another 100,000 miles
 

_happy_

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Use a pick and scratch as much of the corrosion off that you can,then use the dremel brushes.You can spray a bit of contact cleaner inside the tower when you hit the screw heads with the brush,and it'll help get things clean,as yours are on the rough side,but with a bit of work,you should be able to bring them back to where they'll make another 100,000 miles

I did exactly this except for the contact cleaner. I know the contact cleaner would have really got all the gunk out but the Dremel brush you recommended worked very well to clean up the screws. Also used the pick the get as much out before the brush. Lot of compressed air too.

I cant believe I had no misfires before this. Some of my contacts were really rough. No sign of arcing either although it was clearly jumping that corrosion to the spring.

I was about to spend about $350 on new coils but your post gave me the confidence to clean them up instead. No issues at all and I feel it's been running a bit smoother at idle. I have always had a slightly rough / shaking at idle. It seems to be a bit less now.

I have to say that swapping the plugs was more challenging than pulling the dash and replacing the evaporator and heater core that I did a couple weeks ago. Maybe I just got lucky in that went smoothly. I'm not good at bending into the positions to reach the plugs
 
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Wild one

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I did exactly this except for the contact cleaner. I know the contact cleaner would have really got all the gunk out but the Dremel brush you recommended worked very well to clean up the screws. Also used the pick the get as much out before the brush. Lot of compressed air too.

I cant believe I had no misfires before this. Some of my contacts were really rough. No sign of arcing either although it was clearly jumping that corrosion to the spring.

I was about to spend about $350 on new coils but your post gave me the confidence to clean them up instead. No issues at all and I feel it's been running a bit smoother at idle. I have always had a slightly rough / shaking at idle. It seems to be a bit less now.

I have to say that swapping the plugs was more challenging than pulling the dash and replacing the evaporator and heater core that I did a couple weeks ago. Maybe I just got lucky in that went smoothly. I'm not good at bending into the positions to reach the plugs
A little bit of maintence on the coils goes alongways to keeping them healthy and happy.Very seldom do the factory coils actually die,they get a build of corrosion and that's when they'll start to gives issues with misfiring,but with a bit of time spent cleaning and with new boots and springs,you can quite often bring them back to life.
Glad she's running good and idling a bit better :waytogo:
 

pacofortacos

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I've never actually pulled a plug on the hemi yet, I didn't know that these parts were inside - my 5.9 was a bit easier :)
Do you rec. new springs and boots at all? Or only if they are really corroded?

Between these parts and the plugs, the hemi plug change coming up is getting to be an expensive project.
 
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Wild one

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I've never actually pulled a plug on the hemi yet, I didn't know that these parts were inside - my 5.9 was a bit easier :)
Do you rec. new springs and boots at all? Or only if they are really corroded?

Between these parts and the plugs, the hemi plug change coming up is getting to be an expensive project.
Take a couple of the easy to get at coils off,then pop the rubber boots off them ,push the springs out of them and see how badly corroded they are.Most times you can clean them up with a wire wheel and stretch them out slightly,but if they are really bad,it might be easier to buy new boots with new springs.I've only had one set that i had to replace due to corrosion,but i've replaced a few that had the resistors and shorter springs,just to get the longer springs,as i never re-install the resistors,as they're just another corrosion point,and i'm also not a fan of sticking a 2 ohm resistor into the ignition so i can listen to AM radio stations with less static :Big Laugh:
 

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