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took me about 1 hour...did passenger and middle back from passenger side...the key here is lighting, i used my flourescent trouble light to the max here and had few problems...just a sore back.

also pulled the pcv, which freed up a bunch of room. intake was removed at the same time, due to the throttle body cleaning, which was another good choice.

I also had my front end jacked up, which may have made the angles easier, due to the newly painted calipers.

Overall, I think I had a tougher time putting in my alternator than the spark plugs, took forever to put that new one in! Working around the hoses and in that tight space... Sucks to have monster hands.

Yeah, i did mine about a month ago, i was hyping it up to be more then it really was, I did mine outside in the day, with some rain and was able to do all of them in less then 45min.

Slowly but shurly was able to turn the wrench once i figured out the lenghts and all.

I dont have small hands by any means either...

ah i tried this .. and didn't succeed i have small hands but SolaraGuy was down at the time i attempted this.. So i gave up.. Now since i read all this im gonna give a try after this funky weather calms down a lil.. 91 degrees this weekend wow

I finally finished it. I only did the rear ones cause I did the front ones the day before. Today, it took me from 10 in the morning to 5:30 in the afternoon. I didn't work straight through, I quit for a little bit and took a two hour nap. I started it off by trying to get the driver side out but it was really really tight. It wasn't an hour in before I gave up on it and did the other two. After 20 minutes, I finished and went back to the driver side. I didn't have the right tools so I had to walk over to my friends apartment to get them. I did that two more times cause I'm stupid for not bringing to entire toolcase over. After I finished I took it for a spin, came back, decided to change my oil but saw that the pa was full. Drove over to Kragens but they said the bin was full. Left to get some hawaiian bbq and when I got back in the car, it smelled like motor oil. I look over at the passenger side floor and theres the oil all over my carpet and door. Apparently one of my roommates forgot to put the cap back on the side of the pan and when I made a few turns a bit too eccentrically, it slooshed right out. So now I have an oil stained plastic mat, an oil stained carpet mat and a stained carpet. Sorry for the rant but I needed to get this off my chest. Oh ya, and while I was working on the sprk plugs, I had to miss all of my classes for the day. y the time I finished replacing them, class was over for about 30 minutes.

Just to add my 2 cents. Took me 40min for my first time on a Solara. Car defiantly seems to have more of its power and response back again. Thanks for the tips they really helped!

Thanks for the tutorial! I did this and was able to change out my front plugs in under 15 minutes. The back plugs haven't been so easy.

I've been able to get the number 4 plug (passenger side) changed without any major fights. The 5 and 6 plugs have been the problems. I can get the socket into the 6 plug, but can't get the leverage b/c my arm is too big. The 5 plug is impossible. I think the throttle body is going to have to come off, but haven't done that before. Any good tutorials on that?

alright so this could be easy for me or not. I am going at it this weekend. I ain't a big guy so leverage shouldn't be a problem. My question is though, is if OK to change 5 out of 6 for example, say I can't get one out. Is that alright for a day? Like to go to work? So 5 would be new, and one would be old. Thanks.

it would be okay to keep but for not too long, you would want to try getting it sometime during the week.

really depends how warn that 'one' is...

Thx, I don't think I'll have a problem, and would most defiantly get it resolved the next day. Just a question that popped up into my head.

man i worked for about 3 hours today and got all of them EXCEPT the driver's side rear changed. i have the spark plug socket nestled firmly on top of the spark plug, then a 3" and 6" extension with my wrench at the end of all of it. i have the handle of the wrench pointed towards the drivers side horizontally and am trying to get the plug out by pushing downwards. i also tried to use a hammer and a pipe, but i cant get the damn thing lose. i cant even take the the spark plug socket back out and take my car somewhere to get it done because the rubber thing is nestled so tightly onto the spark plug. i made the mistake of attaching the 3" extension to the socket instead of the 6", so it doesnt stick far out enough from the bank for me to get a grip on it to yank it out.

can i use wd40 or something in there to loosen the spark plug? i really have no idea how to loosen it up now..

That plug was the same for me, a big bitc%. I had (3) 3" extensions, and my spark plug socket at the end. I had my wrench pointing away from, towards the passenger side of the car and pulled it up/towards me. That particular plug took about an hour alone. (Of course it was the last one.) I wouldn't use WD40 simply because it is flammable and if you can't get it all out of the opening or whatever the case may be it could damage something. Also, another thing I tried was lay on the strut tower brace, with my face above the wrench or, a little back of it and pulled it directly up. Best of luck to you. Feel free to PM me if you need any more help.

Theres a special tool that sears sell that can help you reach the hard one. Do not know the part number but its a flexible extension rather then a rotating bar.

wahhoooo!!! finally got it done today, only took me 15 minutes. i noticed that the socket wrench i had was kinda loose, so you could rotate it like 5 degrees before it actually began turning the bolt. normally this is no biggie, but in a tight space like that, 5 degrees is all you've got! i went to a friends place and borrowed a higher quality one and was able to get it out immediately! all in all, i spent about 2 and a half hours yesterday, not including the time i wasted on the last one, and 15 minutes today. all done, car drives great! didnt really notice a performace difference, but then again i am only at 60k so my plugs probably werent that bad to begin with. on second thought i probably should have waited, but what's done is done!

a piece of advice that helped me get out the rear middle one was to hook on the ratchet with a total 6" extension (two 3"s), with the handle pointing horizontally towards the driver's side. then i could actually see the ratchet handle THROUGH the gap in the intake manifold looking from above, and i used the handle of the hammer to push the ratchet handle downwards. thats the only way i could get enough leverage.

another tip is to MAKE SURE to use a 6" extension at the end of your spark plug socket, because a 3" one only sticks out of the hole by like 1cm, and so if you need to take it the whole thing out, you can't get a good grip.

another thing i did was to tape my extension to the spark plug socket so that if i needed to pull the whole thing out, i wouldnt be stuck with the socket still inside the cylinder and the extension in my hand. that little rubber gasket inside the spark plug socket grips really damn tight around the spark plug, so once u have it nestled on there, you pretty much HAVE to unscrew your spark plug. i wasnt able to pull it back off because i only had a 3" extension on mine, so i couldnt get any grip.

last tip is when you are putting the new plug in, dont apply so much pressure down that the spark plug gets stuck inside the socket like when you were trying to pull it out. i had that happen twice, and it was all screwed in and stuff, and then i go to pull the socket out and i cant, so i had to undo the whole thing and start over. so make sure you apply light pressure down onto the spark plug while screwing in.

good luck to all who do this, it was tough but fun!

Bazam! I got my NGK's installed today, so I brought back this old thread. Thanks for the tutorial.
I got 2 of back plugs from the driver side. I had to just use one 6" extension though. I couldn't do it with the extra 3".
Then the passenger side, I had to use the 6" and 3" extensions. It wasn't too bad.
Took about 1 hr and 15 mins after I cleaned up.
And it's good to know my car's free of those killer Bosch's it had come with.