Today I took my car too my local mechanic to get new plugs and wires, and when I picked the car up he said the reason the plugs went bad is because oil is getting on them, he said that I have a "valve cover gasket leak" and it is about a 5 hour job that is ver involved to fix. He mentioned that I should check to see if there were any recalls but I also wanted to check on here if anyone else has had this problem. My car is a 99 with almost 80k on it and drives fine except for the spark plugs that needed replacing. I just wanted to know if any one else has had or heard of this problem and how you have to fix it. anyway just curious what you 99 or any cobra owners know about it> thanks alot
HAS THIS HAPPENED TO ANYONE ELSE!
- Thread starter chuckystang
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i am having the same problem. i just ordered new valve cover gaskets yesterday. the gasket that is around the spark plug has blown out in three of them. i only have 30000 miles on the car. should be fun to change. thankfully the gaskets are cheap. like 22.00 per gasket, but still, it is no fun.
Its pretty common on older vehicles, I have seen quite a few Mark VIIIs and continentals with the same problem. I replaced my valve cover gaskets and spark plug o-ring gaskets on my 96 when it still had the original motor while I was replacing all the timing chain tensioners. It wasn't the easiest thing to get the valve covers out, the drivers side was the worst.
COBRA90GT
Mod Dude
Yeah, sounds like a valve-cover gasket job - I would say that 5.0's 4 ever is correct about the driver's side valve-cover being a PITA (due to the location/proximity of the master cylinder, etc).
Additionally, there is really no need to replace the "wires" on a 99+ Coil On Plug system (look under the hood & you'll see why). If it does not make any sense, remove the sparkplug cover that sits atop the valve covers (believe there are two 8mm or 10mm bolts holding it down) and it will be clear as day. It could get pretty expensive if you wanted to replace each individual coil pack.
IIRC, each coilpack can list for roughly $70 at the parts department, times that by 8. Yeah, there's no need to replace them really unless you are suffering from a misfire and have narrowed it down to a bad coilpack. The factory coil on plug system is very efficient and meets the needs for 99% of the owners out there.
Regarding sparkplugs, a lot of owners/racers prefer copper plugs (Autolite 764's, Motorcraft), for their performance advantage over the (factory) platinum sparkplugs.
Then you have the overpriced Plutonium/Uranium (joking
) sparkplugs made by NGK, Denso, etc on the other end of the spectrum. This is my personal opinion, but, until I see a sparkplug deliver substantial horsepower gains by itself, I won't choose anything other than good 'ol copper plugs. Again, just my .02.
Additionally, there is really no need to replace the "wires" on a 99+ Coil On Plug system (look under the hood & you'll see why). If it does not make any sense, remove the sparkplug cover that sits atop the valve covers (believe there are two 8mm or 10mm bolts holding it down) and it will be clear as day. It could get pretty expensive if you wanted to replace each individual coil pack.
IIRC, each coilpack can list for roughly $70 at the parts department, times that by 8. Yeah, there's no need to replace them really unless you are suffering from a misfire and have narrowed it down to a bad coilpack. The factory coil on plug system is very efficient and meets the needs for 99% of the owners out there.
Regarding sparkplugs, a lot of owners/racers prefer copper plugs (Autolite 764's, Motorcraft), for their performance advantage over the (factory) platinum sparkplugs.
Then you have the overpriced Plutonium/Uranium (joking
) sparkplugs made by NGK, Denso, etc on the other end of the spectrum. This is my personal opinion, but, until I see a sparkplug deliver substantial horsepower gains by itself, I won't choose anything other than good 'ol copper plugs. Again, just my .02. thanks for the info, so did I get this right, the spark plugs are under neath those gorgeous alumium valve covers? I thought the spark plugs were those 8 wires pluged in along the sides of the intake manifold where the snake emblem is. Any who, my mechanic put bosch platinums on my 99. do you think those are ok? I can't belive Im having this v/c gasket leak on a 99 which seems to new for that, but it does have 78k miles but still... Worst case scenario, how much do you think it will cost with labor to fix this leak? Most places including Ford have said this problem is very rare and that I am probably mistaken because oil would not get on the spark plugs this way 
Man, is it just me or can these cars be a freakin headache, but we still love em! HAHA I just want to have enough money left over for my gear swap, chip and tune 
Man, is it just me or can these cars be a freakin headache, but we still love em! HAHA I just want to have enough money left over for my gear swap, chip and tune
You are probably looking at around 5 hours of labor to do both sides. I don't know why ford said this was very rare, I work at a lincoln mercury dealership and it is common. Even the 3.9L lincoln LS have this problem.
i just changed mine on saturday. i wasn't to bad of a job. the only thing is that i had to disconnect 2 fuel lines and a a/c line to get the passenger side off, which means that i have to recharge my a/c. and i also hade to pull off the upper intake in order to take them both off. you might be able to take the passenger one off with out removing the intake but deffenatly not the drivers side. trust me i spent an hour trying to squeeze it out but to no evail. once you take off the intake it comes right out. my suggestion, pull the plenum before you even bother with the valve covers. i makes life a lot easier. the gasket to the plenum should be fine as it is a hard gasket and not a soft one. if i hadn't messed around with trying to fit them passed the intake then i would have been done in about three hours. hopfully i will have time to charge my a/c as that is all that is left to do.
i disconected an a/c line because it was in the way of pulling out the passenger side valve cover. i am in the military and the hobby shop on base can recharge my a/c system for like 20.00 bucks. no big deal. if you are smart and think about things before you do them then you could probably get away with out disconnecting the line by taking the plenum loose first as i said above. i didn't and that is why i have to recharge my a/c system. hopefully others will be able to get them off just by removing the plenum as i know i am going to try it first on the next one.
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