93 Caravan/Voyager Spark plugs.

How do you access the rear 3 plugs on the 3.0???

They are LONG overdue for a change.

Reply to
Raster
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The rear 3 on the 3.0 should be pretty easy actually. I've only done them on my '88 Caravan.

Remove the air filter housing, lean way over and you'll see all 3 of them. If it's like mine, the alternator bracket is annoyingly in the way, but it doesn't need to come off if you have a ratchet set with the right extensions. It's really a piece of cake.

Reply to
David Allen

Agreed. There's two metal straps that attach the air cleaner housing to the rearmost top edge of the intake manifold plenum. IIRC, they're 13mm. Remove and set aside. The engine wiring harness hangs from those metal straps using plastic doodads. Slide it gently forward and off the straps. Next, take a screwdriver and loosen/remove the snorkel-like hose from the throttle body on the driver's side of the intake plenum. A little wiggle, a little wobble, and the air cleaner assembly will come right out. Watch the thin vacuum lines near the firewall that you don't snag and disconnect them. You will also be removing the molded PCV breather hose from the rear valve cover as you lift the air cleaner up. Once it's out of there, you will have nearly unfettered access to the rear plugs. #1 by the alternator bracket is a bitch, especially if the plug boot is stuck onto the plug, but you CAN remove the plug without any further disassembly (e.g. alternator bracket, etc.) -- it just takes patience and persistance. Use just a smidge of anti-seize compound on the sparkplug threads before reassembly. A very little goes a long way.

While you have the air cleaner out and the throttle body exposed, take the opportunity to use some carburetor cleaner sprayed (directly) on a rag to clean all the soot out of the throttle body you can. Doing it now will possibly prevent the famous 3.0 stalls-when-coming-to-a-stop issue. If you want to get really thorough, purchase a replacement throttle body mounting gasket in advance, remove the throttle cable(s), two wiring harness plugs and the throttle body itself from the engine to clean it thoroughly. If you're going to spray carburetor cleaner on the throttle body directly, do it this way--but first make sure to remove the throttle position sensor and the AIS (IAC) motor so they're not damaged by the solvent. Use Q-tips to clean the idle air passageway and you'll have prevented that particular common stalling issue for certain.

One more thing: I always took the opportunity to replace plug wires, cap and rotor with each sparkplug change. Possibly overkill with the wires, but the cap and rotor always showed signs of burnt contacts by the time the plug life had expired.

--Geoff

Reply to
Geoff

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