EastWestHemi
Senior Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2017
- Posts
- 166
- Reaction score
- 83
- Location
- Out West
- Ram Year
- 2016 2500
- Engine
- 6.4 w/4.10s
I bought my truck in August of 2016 and have only racked up 79k miles, but i do have 1000 hours of idling with 2500 hrs of driving. I know idling is bad for the hemi, but work is work so no getting around that. I have overcompensated for idling with aggressive oil change frequency.
Anyway, took 2.5 hours, hardest plug was the passenger side rear, although I did not have to remove the heater hoses from their position, I just muddled through it— I was amused because on my old 2006 Jeep 5.7 the drivers side was harder and on this truck the passenger side is worse. I opted to not remove the air intake box— which would have made things better.
The first cylinders on each side the plugs spun out the toughest— they were both dry. The MDS cylinders spun out easy because they had oil on the threads. The big surprise I had was from cylinder 7, the second plug I removed had carbon build up between the center and side electrode so much so that a chunk of carbon was bridging the gap. Must have been an MDS cylinder, but none of the other ones had carbon build up, just some wet threads. Pretty sure the second plug on the cylinder is the exhaust stroke fire. Wouldn’t be surprised if the O2 sensor fails first on that side.
The gaps on the old plugs ranged from 0.045 to 0.050 and the old plugs were Bosch. I put in the NGK laser iridium’s and everything is fine. torqued to 10 ft/lbs and the old truck is ready for another 100k miles.
On the drivers side the wiring harness is snug right against the connectors for the coil packs for the first two cylinders— so I just took the coil pack off with the connector still attached and popped it off once freed. The drivers side is more difficult because the release button on the connectors is pointed toward the rear of the vehicle, making it very hard to release with your thumb— I ended up pulling all the coil packs first before releasing the connector.
Anyway, it wasn’t all that bad. Once I broke each plug free I switched to a 1/4 ratchet with a 3/8 adapter because you can get more clicks and the plugs come out quicker and the ratchet is short and more maneuverable. Pretty much used a combo of two 3” extensions, 2” wobble extension and universal joint. You don’t need the wobble, but 2” length helped. The only thing I needed the universal joint for was to connect to the socket so I could easily drop it into a cylinder around different things that make it tight, you don’t need it to do long extensions into areas of the engine bay. No need for spark plug starting tools either, just throw a 3” extension on and you can feel the plug start nicely with the fingers. Unfortunately, my now 12 year old 3/8” digital snap on torque wrench took a crap so I bought a $30 harbor freight click and done torque wrench that worked fine.
Does anyone know how many shop hours the dealerships call for to change the plugs? I assuming either 2 or 3 hours.
79k and drives exactly the same as the day I drove it off the lot. No pictures or anything, because it’s really nothing special… they are just spark plugs.
Anyway, took 2.5 hours, hardest plug was the passenger side rear, although I did not have to remove the heater hoses from their position, I just muddled through it— I was amused because on my old 2006 Jeep 5.7 the drivers side was harder and on this truck the passenger side is worse. I opted to not remove the air intake box— which would have made things better.
The first cylinders on each side the plugs spun out the toughest— they were both dry. The MDS cylinders spun out easy because they had oil on the threads. The big surprise I had was from cylinder 7, the second plug I removed had carbon build up between the center and side electrode so much so that a chunk of carbon was bridging the gap. Must have been an MDS cylinder, but none of the other ones had carbon build up, just some wet threads. Pretty sure the second plug on the cylinder is the exhaust stroke fire. Wouldn’t be surprised if the O2 sensor fails first on that side.
The gaps on the old plugs ranged from 0.045 to 0.050 and the old plugs were Bosch. I put in the NGK laser iridium’s and everything is fine. torqued to 10 ft/lbs and the old truck is ready for another 100k miles.
On the drivers side the wiring harness is snug right against the connectors for the coil packs for the first two cylinders— so I just took the coil pack off with the connector still attached and popped it off once freed. The drivers side is more difficult because the release button on the connectors is pointed toward the rear of the vehicle, making it very hard to release with your thumb— I ended up pulling all the coil packs first before releasing the connector.
Anyway, it wasn’t all that bad. Once I broke each plug free I switched to a 1/4 ratchet with a 3/8 adapter because you can get more clicks and the plugs come out quicker and the ratchet is short and more maneuverable. Pretty much used a combo of two 3” extensions, 2” wobble extension and universal joint. You don’t need the wobble, but 2” length helped. The only thing I needed the universal joint for was to connect to the socket so I could easily drop it into a cylinder around different things that make it tight, you don’t need it to do long extensions into areas of the engine bay. No need for spark plug starting tools either, just throw a 3” extension on and you can feel the plug start nicely with the fingers. Unfortunately, my now 12 year old 3/8” digital snap on torque wrench took a crap so I bought a $30 harbor freight click and done torque wrench that worked fine.
Does anyone know how many shop hours the dealerships call for to change the plugs? I assuming either 2 or 3 hours.
79k and drives exactly the same as the day I drove it off the lot. No pictures or anything, because it’s really nothing special… they are just spark plugs.
