It’s been a week since I changed the spark plugs on the van. The van was running pretty rough and the check engine light had come on. It was about a quart low on Oil so I thought that may have been the problem. I needed to get it inspected so I can get it licensed in TX. So I took it in to get the oil changed and get it inspected. I failed the inspection because my front two tires were bald and the check engine sensors indicated that piston 3 was miss firing. There is about 122,000 miles on the van so I was probably time to change the spark plugs.
The first thing I did was check some stuff on the internet and see what other people were doing with vans like mine, a 2000 chevy venture . A couple said it could take up to 4-4.5 hours to change the plugs. One guy said he did it in 2.5 and didn’t rotate the engine. So I got the Haynes manual just in case. I tried it the way the 2.5 hour guy suggested for about a couple of hours. I believe it can be done this way. But the guy had longer skinnier arms than me and was way stronger. I finally got the Haynes manual out and started to do it that way. I had been too the Home depot twice, and Wal-mart once to get tools. Then about the time I was getting ready to rotate the engine Charles, my brother-in-law showed up. He help read the manual, and get the engine rotated properly. we took all the electrical stuff off and the coil pack. Then I started to try to pull the wires off the spark plugs. it was almost impossible. Charles said there was a tool for that and so we were off to the store to get one of those. The tool help and I was able to finish the job. Over all it took me more than 6 hours to get the project finished. I still don’t consider myself much of a mechanic.
Leave a Reply