2003 tahoe spark plug replacement

[jmann]

Thanks to the people that helped me with my plug change questions. I was concerned because I wasn't sure how the heat shield connects to the spark plug, what I now know is it just slips on over the boot and you then plug the boot and shield on to the plug. changed the last night and thought I should give some feed back. First the plug change. 2003 5.3 tahoe. I tried pulling the boot but the first one I pulled broke off inside the boot where it connects to the plug. The best way i found to remove the boot is to connect a small vice grip or boot puller to the heat shield and pull it off all together. The shield helps keep you from tearing up the boot. All the plugs came out ok but the left rear. It was abear, small hands would have helped. I replaced with new plus and boots even though the plugs I took out after 131,000 miles looked new. So much for the need to replace after 100.000. I would recommend if you are wealthy and don't like doing this kind of work, pay a shop to do it. My hands will take a few weeks to heal from the cuts and scratches. Hope this helps

 

[667theneighbour]

It's when it hurts you know you're alive.

And the feeling you get when you're done is far better than when you pick up the car at the shop. What do shop's charge for an hour? Here they charge $140-$150/hour.

 

[jmann]

spark plug replacement

I am 65 years old and feel great when I do my own work and make sure it is done right. I saved a great deal of money, but dealers do good work and it is for those that don't have the time, tools or skill and want to pay the high charges. I asked how to change the plugs because I never changed plugs with heat shields. the feedback helped but was still a bit confusing.

 

[notch8]

You did better than me. I changed mine last week and just got irritated and ripped off the whole assembly. I still can't figure out what the engineers were thinking when they decided where to put the rear passenger side plug in. That plug took longer than the other 7 combined for me.

 

[tybardy]

everyone always says that about the passenger rear plug, it took a while for me to get the new plug threaded, but didnt take too long to get off... that is the plugg that caused the most damage to my hand though... lol

 

[667theneighbour]

I've changed plugs on a Subb 8,1 and as I recall I wasn't all that bad. But I guess I had good tools for the job since I did it at my old job, an agricultural shop/garage. Or maybe the 5,3 Tahoe is more difficult to get at.

 

[Dynamo]

I just replaced the plugs & wires on my '03 Tahoe (5.3L) this past weekend. I'm glad I had been prepared with new wires because I ended up destroying most of the old wires while removing them. They just would not budge. I had to grab the end of them with a pair of angle pliers and use the exhaust manifold as a leverage point to pull them off. On the ones that got destroyed the rubber boot pulled off but the metal clip remained on the plug. Once I got the boot off I was able to get the metal clip off relatively easy.

And as mentioned the passenger side rear plug was the hardest but really it was only hard because it was difficult to reach. I found that it was easier to put the socket (without the ratchet) onto the plug first then put the rathet onto the socket. Using that method made it fairly easy to get the plug out. The original plugs looked pretty decent but I'm glad to have new ones in there now. I'm also glad the job only needs to be done every 100K miles.