Changing spark plugs on our 2005 Ford Freestyle

Replacing the sparkplugs, and Transaxle Roll Restrictor mount on a Ford Freestyle

Why change the plugs? Mileage was down; start-up crank times were starting to get a little longer than when the car was new. Plus reading the plugs can give you a good indication of how your engine is running.

Why change the Transaxle Roll Restrictor? Apparently it’s pretty common for the rubber bushing on these to wear-out. This mount is on the top of the engine and is easy to replace if you are already doing spark plugs.

Time: 6 hours

Tools needed:

-3/8 inch ratchet with 10mm, 13mm, 19mm, and 3/4 inch sparkplug sockets and a few extensions.

-1/4 inch ratchet with 8mm socket and T-25 torx bit and a few extensions.

-8mm, 1 1/16 inch combination wrenches, as well as a large adjustable or 24mm combination wrench.

-Needle-nose and standard slip joint pliers

-1/4 inch and 1/8 inch tip slotted screwdrivers

-sparkplug gap tool (spec is .052-.056 –I got a gauge that has .054)

- Catch-pan for draining coolant (I used and old litter box)

Recommended:

-3/8 inch air ratchet and blow-off gun

-1/4 inch driver handle

-High-temp anti seize compound

-shop vac

The shop vac and large crescent wrench are missing from this picture.

Parts needed:

-Transaxle Roll Restrictor -$260!!!

-Upper intake manifold gaskets

-I STRONGLY recommend lower intake gaskets as well.

-Spark plugs (recommend platinum or double platinum, when in doubt ask the guys that work on cars at a Ford dealership, not just the guys that sell parts)

First step, make sure you have everything you need, including a second vehicle to make a run to the parts store. Check?

Okay, this can be done in any driveway or garage, and with the exception of a few large wrenches it can be done with the most basic of hand tools. The first big step is removing the big cross brace the Transaxle Roll Restrictor (TRR from now on) mounts to. It needs to come out to get the upper intake manifold off of the engine. It’s not too crazy of a thing to do; there is one bolt where the brace connects to the TRR, then four bolts that connect the brace to the strut towers. These bigger bolts are 24mm, I have a socket that fits them but there isn’t enough clearance for this particular socket and ratchet (from my ¾ inch drive collection). So I just used my large crescent wrench to pull these bolts, they aren’t supper tight and are deceptive to look at, the bolt head seems much larger than it needs to be. Once you pull the five bolts you can remove the brace and set it aside. I make a habit of placing the bolts back in the holes they came from so I don’t lose track of them, just turning them in a few threads will suffice.

The instructions my wife found online provided minimalist instructions for the things that need to be done to get the intake out. If you have been at these kinds of projects for a while you may recall changing the sparkplugs on your old truck or car never took 6 hours or involved removing an intake. True, on an older V8 rear wheel drive car I could often change all of the plugs in about ten minutes. But you never had to remove the intake on those to get to the plugs. It’s a packaging versus physics thing we are dealing with here. The part at the back of the intake with all of the ribs is called the plenum. This helps the engine perform well at all speeds. The smoother pipes between the plenum and the engine its self are the runners. There are equations that explain how longer runners help provide more torque at lower engine speed (or any speed really), but I’m not going to get into those here. Basically Ford engineers determined this was the most effective way to package the intake manifold into the engine compartment on these cars, and all things considered six hours to remove and replace the intake manifold, sparkplugs (and six ignition coils) as well as a motor mount would be tough to beat on your old truck with a small block. In fact good luck doing all of that and not have to redo anything because of a coolant or vacuum leak afterwards. And I didn’t need a drop of RTV sealant.

Here are the basic steps we found online, they are from a Ford Workshop Manual:

1.  Drain the cooling system. (About 1-1.5 gallons will do, these cars have coolant circulating around the throttle body)

2.  Disconnect the battery ground (NEG) cable. (I ended up removing the whole battery and its tray, you’ll see why in step 11.)

3.  Remove air cleaner outlet pipe.

4.  Remove the 4 transaxle roll restrictor (TRR) cross brace bolts.

5.  Remove the bolt and the TRR.

6.  *Disconnect the evaporative emissions (EVAP) canister purge valve tube from the upper intake manifold and detach the retainer.* (This can be ignored, I traced the hard plastic EVAP tube to the passenger side strut tower where is connects to the purge valve. The connections are snap-to-connect fittings and can be released by pressing in on a rectangular button on the side of the connector. I left the tube attached to the upper intake manifold.)

7.  Disconnect the positive crankcase ventilation (PCV), brake booster and vacuum harness tubes from the upper intake manifold. (This is a little vague; see the pictures for a better explanation. Also the rear vacuum tubes will need to be disconnected but I found it easier to wait until I could bring the intake towards the front of the car and reach them easier.)

8.  Detach the fuel tube retainer from the upper intake manifold (it was easier to unlatch and open the retainer, see the pic)

9.  Disconnect the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) system module electrical connector and vacuum tubes).

10.  Detach the vacuum tube from the upper intake manifold vacuum tube retainer. (this is a sneaky little guy, it’s one tube wrapped in corrugated conduit and basically jammed into a slot down on the lower driver-side of the upper intake just above the lower intake manifold, I could not get it back in that slot the way I found it.)

11.  Disconnect the EGR system module tube from the EGR system module. (This is the one significant got-cha in the whole project, it takes a big wrench of a specific size and it is really rusted on there. If you round the corners on this you are in trouble, if you get it free you are home-free. Remember this thing is upside down, take a second and consider “lefty = loosey” would be true if you were under the EGR module. You need to spin the wrench from the master cylinder towards the front passenger tire here.)

12.  Disconnect and plug the throttle body and PCV coolant hoses. (This is verbatim from the Ford manual, but if there is no such PCV coolant hose(s) and if you drained the coolant right as per the tips in the pictures you will have little to no coolant in the hoses anyway.)

13.  Disconnect the throttle body electrical connector.

14.  If equipped remove and discard the four upper-to-lower intake manifold screws. (This is what the T-25 bit is for, they are like wood screws that held the two halves of the intake together for final assembly, and serve no structural or meaningful purpose now. You really can toss them.

15. Remove the 8 bolts and the upper intake manifold. *remove and discard the gaskets (at this point there is nothing but gravity and wishes keeping the lower intake manifold in place. Which means it will get bumped around as you wrestle the upper intake out of the car. Hence you should be prepared to remove and replace the lower intake gaskets as well. Also be sure to have a crevice tool on your shop vac and some means of cleaning the sealing surface, like a sturdy rag or one of those 3M gasket cleaning pads from the auto parts store.)

   So now you can get cracking on those spark plugs or that TRR mount, I did the plugs first, but it doesn’t matter at all. If you’ve ever changed sparkplugs before this will be familiar to you, with the exception that you have to remove the coil pack to get to them, which is just one small bolt. Be sure to vacuum or use compressed air down in the sparkplug well before removing the spark plug. These engines don’t like small rocks in the combustion chambers. I took three coil packs out at a time, you can do them one at a time, just be sure to put them back in the right place (torque coil pack bolts to 53 INCH pounds). Make sure your engine is cool before doing this. I’ve tried swapping plugs on a warm engine with plug wells like this and my socket got lodged in there. Something about heat related expansion… I had to wait for the engine (and socket) to cool before the socket would come back out. Remember to gap the plugs between .052-.056”

   As for the TRR, it is pretty basic stuff too. Four bolts plus a little wiggling and it’s out. It serves to control the engine from rolling backward into the firewall when you floor the gas pedal, and doesn’t hold any weight of the engine at all (if it had things would have been interesting pulling that big cross brace earlier on.) I usually prefer hand tools while working, since I like the control and ability to hear my music, but for this bugger I broke out my air ratchet.

   Putting things back together is the reverse order of disassembly, I’ll provide the highlights:

Intake manifold bolt torque: 89 INCH pounds

   Pattern: 

                             Firewall 

Passenger side  (5) (1) (3) (7)  Driver side

                         (6) (2) (4) (8)

                           Front of car

EGR tube torque: 30 foot pounds

TRR Cross Brace (to strut tower bolts): 41 foot pounds

Cross Brace to TRR bolt: 35 foot pounds

   Now for the pictures!

I jumped around a little, and pulled the intake off first, two latches on the filter box and one hose clamp at the throttle body. Oh and the connector for the mass air flow (MAF) sensor and PCV tube (seen laying across the battery).

The bolts aren't as large as you would think. Ford recommends cleaning and applying new (blue) thread lock.

There's the crescent wrench...

Now for the tougher jobs...

The white connector is the EVAP tube that I decided not to disconnect later on.

I recommend pulling the back coolant hose first (come us between the throttle body and the brake fluid reservoir.

My catch pan missed a little, but some towels made up for it. I'm not impressed with the radiator drain on this car.

The drain needed the 19mm socket to get loose, it drains through the center. Use the ratchet to crack it loose then finish opening by hand to spare your tools a coolant bath.

Many of the connectors have a red security tab, you have to pull it down to unlatch the connector.

Here is the snap-to-connect fitting on the brake booster, here I'm pressing the release button, notice the latch inside has a small gap under them.

Releasing the button allows the latch to return, compare this picture to the previous one.

the large vacuum hose on the upper intake has a break-over latch, after a little examination you will figure them out.

This is the other end of the hose that went to the top-rear tube near the throttle body, it had some coolant in it but nothing major. I only removed it to improve access to the EGR tube.

Here's a close up of the TRR and its bad rubber insert. If you have a Freestyle, Mondeo or Five Hundred that is a few years old your TRR may look like this.

Here is the fuel line retainer, you can try to disconnect from the upper intake manifold, but I chose a different route.

You can insert a small screwdriver in the side of the latch on this, then just pop the fuel line out of the retainer, this was easier on my car.

This is the high pressure fuel connection to the fuel rail. I don't recommend messing with it, there is no reason to for this job.

The tube with my finger on it is a breather for the transaxle, it is not supposed to be connected to anything. Its plastic clip just keeps it in place and needs to be detached from the hose on the throttle body, don't for get it when you put things back together.

The battery tray has four bolts holding it down, and a devious little clip.

These three harness connectors need to be pried off the tray, be gentle with the tapped on connectors.

Here's that devious little clip. I didn't pry it out, instead I just grabbed the battery tray and yanked it upward.

After getting the tray out the harnesses kept falling down in my work space. I used a bungee to pull it back.

I hooked it on a wheel spoke.

The hex above the brown tube is the EGR connection.

Be sure to spin the wrench from right to left.

Here the flare nut is slid down the EGR tube. This is the trickiest part of the whole project.

The electrical connection on the back of the EGR is kind of hard to reach, but pressing on the top will release the latch, then you can separate it.

I pulled the intake forward to access the vacuum tubes.

With the intake resting on the front valvecover and radiator you can use both hands to pry the top of each vacuum tube connection with a screwdriver and the bottom with your fingers.

Here's a bottom view of the back of the intake manifold. The EGR is to the right.

Another shot with the EGR and throttle body.

A view down the lower intake manifold.

Press the top tab to unplug the coils.

These plugs look decent for their age, they are seven years old and have about 90,000 miles on them, the color is good, but the gap had opened up to over .070" due to erosion.

After swapping the plugs I started swapping the TRR. I don't have a "cheater pipe" but this is how I get extra leverage when I need it.

Side by side of old TTR and new TTR. There are very subtle differences (the voids are smaller on the new one).

Here's a glimpse of all of the junk that gets between the lower intake and the cylinder heads, This is why I recommend getting new lower intake gaskets. Both of these surfaces need to be cleaned before reassembly.

Getting the intake back into place with the bolts hanging down is a pain, try a short strip of masking tape or electrical tape between the bolts and the intake. Make them so you can pull them out the front after the intake is in-place.

An example of the tape holding the bolts (sleeves really) up to help you out.

This 1/4 inch driver handle isn't necessary but I find it handy. It has a drive socket on the top to attach a ratchet handle.

In summary don't forget to hook everything back up. Including putting that transaxle breather tube back up by the coolant hose near the throttle body, and topping off the coolant. It took a few warm up cycles to work all of the air out. If you have any questions, please leave it in a comment!