OK. My 2004 Crossfire Coupe passed 100K miles in January, and I started taking care of all the maintenance requirements. I change the oil and filter every 5000 miles, and change the trans filter, and flush the trans per the advice of "Car D. Ologist" on Youtube (He deals with his Mercedes Benz, but it's the same engine/trans, and his presentation is excellent and works very well.) every 25K miles.

NOW, it was time for the spark plugs. Have never changed them, and worried A LOT about doing damage when I extracted them. I could see being stuck with torn out threads due to it now being 21 years and 100K miles since they were installed. I REALLY dreaded doing this, but decided, for better or worse, to go ahead and get it out of the way.

FIRST OFF, if your valve covers or breather cover are not leaking, DO NOT REMOVE THEM for a spark plug change!. HUGE extra waste of time, and you risk damaging the coil pack connectors, etc. I removed the R/H side valve cover because it was leaking, and it looked like it would be easier. THIS IS AN ILLUSION AND MAKES NO DIFFERENCE TO THE EFFORT REQUIRED FOR THE SPARK PLUG CHANGE!.

My NEXT consideration was how do I insure the plugs will come out? I finally devised a plan where I would warm the engine up with a drive, then apply a freezing solution to the plugs, and then put the spark plug socket on the plug, and see if they would break loose.

The special plug wire wrench IS critical!. It will help you remove the spark plug wires, without any damage whatsoever. I popped off all the spark plug wires on one side, in about 30 seconds total. Easy removal and no damage. The special spark plug socket with it's flex drive is ALSO critical. I rated THOSE TWO ITEMS AS BEING ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY FOR A SUCCESSFUL SPARK PLUG CHANGE!

The next thing was to remove the coil packs. I decided NOT TO DISCONNECT ANYTHING ON THEM, BUT TO JUST REMOVE THE ONE RETAINING BOLT ON EACH COIL,THEN GENTLY LIFT THE COILS AND SPARK PLUG WIRES, AND ROLL THEM OVER VERY GENTLY SO THEY WERE OUT OF THE WAY. I disconnected NOTHING, and NOTHING broke on any of the coil packs. Someone on here with long experience stated that the original spark plug wire assemblies were far better than any spares replacement currently available, and that you should not change them unless you actually had one that was physically damaged. Thus I decided not to replace any spark plug wires.

The next thing was the dreaded spark plug removal. During preparation for this, the first thing I did was get a can of "Freeze-It" at a local electrical store. My can was 185 grams, or about 9 ounces, and this was more than sufficient to flood each plug with the spray, and I still had some left over. Before I apply it, I first checked my replacement spark plugs (NGK) with a socket. What I wanted was a socket that had clearance and a loose fit all the way down to the spark plug wrenching boss area. This socket is NOT to engage the plug but to sit loosely over it, to form a loose cavity around the wrenching area for the Freezing solution to run into, flood around the metal boss on the spark plug, and freeze the plug body itself, thus shrinking it and hopefully reducing any binding to a minimum, If you use a socket that actually fits the plug, YOU WILL BLOCK OFF THE FLOW OF FREEZE-IT TO JUST THE CERAMIC AREA AT THE TOP OF THE PLUG, AND THIS WILL NOT HELP WITH REMOVAL AT ALL. The Freeze-It comes with a flexible straw. I placed the loose socket over the plug, put the flexible straw down through the square drive hole in the end of the deep socket, and flooded the plug with the Freeze-It. I then lifted the loose socket off the plug, put the special flexible spark plug socket on it, and easily broke them all loose, one after another, all the way down the row of 6 plugs. It worked perfectly, they all broke loose easily, and I then went back to the first plug, and screwed it all the way out, checked the gap on the new plug, put nickel anti-seize on the threads of the new plug, dropped it into place, and started it with the socket, driven by my fingers only. I tightened them down to just snug, and moved on to the next plug, until I had all 6 plugs on that side changed. I then went down the row of plugs and torqued them all, and that completed the spark plug change on that side.

The next aggravation was reinstalling the valve cover. I had Fel-Pro valve cover gaskets, which I expected would be VERY GOOD, but in fact were pretty poor. I got the cover on, and found it was leaking badly all over. There was no excuse for this, as I had degreased the breather cover and valve cover, washed them in solvent, and then rinsed them in MEK. They were absolutely, spotlessly clean. The breather was sealed with Permatex sealer, and that part worked fine. A couple days later, I pulled the cover off again. I found the rubber gasket had been molded about 10-12 mm TOO LONG. From long experience with these gaskets on jet engines and aircraft, I KNOW that such a gasket MUST BE PRECISELY THE CORRECT LENGTH. IF THEY ARE TOO LONG, THEY WILL NOT WORK!. IF THEY ARE TOO SHORT, THEY WILL NOT WORK!. Ideally, they should be within 010" of correct length for the sealing surface. Fel-Pro's approximation of what they felt was a good gasket was woefully off.

After cleaning the cover up again, and again making it spotless, I laid the gasket into the grooves, slowly and gently, and determined where the excess could be accumulated and removed. This was on the LOWER side of the valve cover, at about the mid point of the length of the cover. Finessing the gasket into it's grooves, I finally determined where I could remove the excess. I trimmed a chunk out about .250" in length, which left the edges of the gasket butting with each other just perfectly. I put Permatex in the cut area, followed by a tiny dab to JUST bring the sealing dab a tiny bit above the sealing surface. I then put the cover back on, gently tightened the bolts back down, and torqued them in sequence over the entire cover. No leaks after this. This "Swirly Google" gasket is yet another example of engineers being able to use fancy computers to make things FAR more complicated and less reliable than they needed to be. If you examine the cover, you can see that if they had moved the sealing surface out by .250" in each dimension, the gasket cover could have been sealed with a simple flat rectangular cork gasket, with a light layer of sealer on it, and it would probably have lasted the life of the vehicle.

I still REALLY LIKE MY CROSSFIRE! But this is the absolute first car in my entire life, that I had to rebuild the front suspension completely at 100K miles! And not only rebuild it by replacing nearly every component, but then had to spend additional money, JUST TO GET THE FRONT SUSPENSION TO ADJUST PROPERLY, SINCE THEY KNEW AT THE FACTORY WHEN THEY BUILT THE CAR THAT THE CAMBER BOLTS WERE INCORRECT FOR USE WITH THIS SUSPENSION SETUP AND NEVER COULD BE ADJUSTED TO GIVE MAXIMUM TIRE LIFE - AND THEY WENT AHEAD AND DID IT ANYWAY!

It is hard to believe the exceptionally poor engineering that is embodied in this car. The only car I have ever owned that matched it for maintenance demands is the Jaguar XK-8, which I also love, but I have forgiven it's mechanical sins because it is both incredibly beautiful, and joy to drive, and also it is British, so I knew what I was getting into when I bought it. Frankly, when I bought this car, I expected to be blown away by it's technical excellence. This thing is actually about on a level with a Yugo for engineering. From a 1952 Pontiac, to a 1970 AMC Rebel, a 1979 Ford Mustang with a 302 V-8, A Dodge Caravan, TWO Saturn SC-2's, a Chevy Corsica, and a 1982 GMC pickup,, NONE of them ever needed a front suspension rebuild,, just an alignment every 3-4 years at $29.95 per, and NONE of them ever had a valve cover gasket leak. REALLY? WTF!?!? They couldn't even design a valve cover that wouldn't leak? My faith in MB is severely shaken! And this was a FInal Iteration Engine, that should have had no bugs left in it! God help the people who bought cars with these engines when they first came out! They must have been REAL DOGS at that time!

Also, they should have painted their engines. This raw aluminum engine looks like a huge, corroded blob. When you remove the engine covers and fairings, it is a REALLY UGLY ENGINE! The Mercedes engine sculpture of the 1930's is long gone!

I must admit that the car has been pretty reliable. I have never yet been stuck by the side of the road. But THIS has only been possible by using this forum to stay ahead of problems as they develop, and nipping them in the bud. GREAT THANKS are due to ALL the members of this forum, for their commitment to keeping these cars on the road! It is only your tireless activities that have kept this vehicle alive and operating, and I must salute you!.