First thing you want to do is buy the appropriate plugs and wires for your truck. Check what the gap is and set it on all the plugs prior to ...

First thing you want to do is buy the appropriate plugs and wires for your truck. Check what the gap is and set it on all the plugs prior to so you don't have the "Did I gap that last plug?" fear that I did. Next locate where all your plugs are, on the V8 6.0L they are all on the sides and easy to locate.

Time:
2 hours for the first time plug replacer without all proper tools and a kid going through your toolbox.

Next figure out what side of the engine you are going to work on. I chose the right side and it was very simple. First off pull the upper part of the wire from the engine. This should be very easy, never pull a spark plug wire by the wire itself, it will break and make your life much harder; pull it by the rubber boot. Make sure you only pull one wire at a time, not so confusing for vehicles without distributor caps but still it maintains order.

Once you have the upper portion pulled next you will remove the wire from the plug. If you have a boot puller, attach it and give it a twist and pull and it should all come out very easy. If you only have a pair of slip joints grab it by the boot and twist it a few times. The boot will probably give you quite a bit of trouble but keep going till it is off. If the wire comes off don't fear. Just keep working on the boot. Occasionally the boot will come off and leave the electrical connector on the top of the plug, gently pull it straight off the top of the plug at the same angle of the plug.

Once the wire is off, remove the spark plug using your ratchet and spark plug socket. Once it is off inspect the spark plug at the bottom. Most auto guides will give you a chart to inspect by. You can see if there is unhappy things going on in your engine by spark plug inspection.

Here is a photo of how to read your spark plugs:

Toss the old plug away so you don't mistake it and put it back in. Take your gapped new spark plug and coat the threads with plug gel; make sure to keep it away from the last two threads. Now carefully by hand place it back in the engine and turn it by hand as much as you can. Now turn it with the torque wrench or ratchet if you don't have it, either to recommended tq or nice and tight, be careful not to over tighten and bust threads or break the plug.

Now add the wire gel to your new ones and connect the upper and lower boots. You should hear a slight click on the spark plug. Repeat this on all the plugs and wires.

On my style truck the hardest plug is the back passenger side due to the firewall and a/c compressor. With the right tools this is not a problem. The top of my craftsman plug socket has a 3/4 threading for a short extension to be made by turning it with a 3/4 socket instead of straight on.

ALWAYS stick with as close to original equipment Spark Plugs as you can. Lots of crap and hype out there in the aftermarket world.

Don't forget you'll need at least 2 beers.

And what do you mean "coat the threads with plug gel"? Are you talking about anti-sieze?

Yup there you go, it was 530am when I wrote this, can't expect to much.

Okay, good. Just making sure there wasn't a special product that I didn't know about

nutter, that is great advice about screwing the new plug in by hand as far as possible. I cross-threaded a plug and forced it with a socket in an aluminum head once. Had to have the thing re-tapped, and probably got chucks of stuff into the cylinder. Coat 'em with anti-sieze, and screw 'em in gently! Just use the socket or torque wrench to snug them up.

Yeah I was kind of nervous because the manual said use a lenght of tube to put them in to avoid cracking it. So I used a lenght of my hand instead since I was unprepared.

The "common spark plug problems " chart does not say anything about lost platinum pads on the electrodes. If the gap is MUCH wider than normal, it could be because the platinum pad fell off.

If that happens, I guess you have to hope the chunk of platinum went cleanly out the exhaust valve before it did too much damage inside the cylinder...

They just fly through the engine, no damage. If you want to take the time and look, you usually find the little pad stuck in the honeycomb of the Catalytic Converter.