strange popping noise from engine

possibly a coil pack or ht lead breaking down, giving a misfire/wrong cylinder firing.

mrcheerful

I thought this too, kind of think it even more now as 2 of the sparkplug sockets were half full with water when i checked this afternoon and the rubber plugs around the leads were a pretty loose fit into the engine, the water is from when i hosed it all down the previous weekend.

I'll buy another set of plugs and leads and see what happens. Whatever it is please don't let it be the head gasket :(

If it was a head gasket you'd have oil in the water and or water in the oil - creamy emulsion on the dipstick - and probably a lot of steam out the exhaust. That said you can sometimes see this in the oil (or on the underneath of the oil filler cap) in engines that only do a lot of very short runs - for those the cure is a a 50 mile blast up a motorway which gets rid of all the accumulated condensation.

If you think it might be a headgasket then get a pressure test done on the cooling system before you start tearing the thing apart - if it holds pressure then the gasket is more than likely OK. Next step after that would be to do a compression test on the engine.

Sounds more like the water in the plug sockets though. Not sure why you should need to replace the HT leads & plugs - just dry the thing out, maybe a light spray of WD40 & take it for a drive That would cure it I should have thought.

I.

problem is that once the leads and plugs have tracked down the outside there is a tiny amount of carbonised material that will track much more easily in the future. these engines have massively high spark voltages and suffer from lead problems anyway, they really are a service item, so they do need to be renewed, preferably with genuine ford ones.

mrcheerful

On looking at previous posts i've gathered this is quite a common problem, the oil is fine and there is no more water around the spark plugs when i've checked this morning. I did notice on the way home last night, after i'd dried everything out things seemed to be a lot better but after about 6 miles it began spluttering again only this time it seemed much worse.

The car is fairly high mileage and i've no idea when the plugs were last changed, it certainly can't do any harm to replace the leads and plugs, hopefully that'll sort it.

engine

My engine shakes like mad when it's revved, it looks like it's gonna leap out of the bonnet when it's revved to about 3000rpm lol. I would've though the shaking was normal, but I may be wrong.

My car's recently had a misfire due to a faulty spark plug. It was only noticeable to be at idle though, your symptons are a bit different.

How old are the spark plugs etc., has it been serviced recently?

I've replaced the spark plugs and leads today and that seems to have cured the problem. Took the leads off the plugs just after i'd turned the engine off and there was a fair bit of steam coming out of the plug recess.

Not sure when the plugs were last changed, i've had the car almost 2 years and never changed them.

The gaps on the old plugs were a bit odd too, on cylinders 1, 2 and 3 the gap's were upwards of 2 - 2.5mm but on 4 the gap was barely 0.5mm, not sure whats happened there but they were all a healthy colour and the problem has now gone.

Thanks for everyone's help.