Spark plug wire replacement

[bigpappy]

Greetings, one and all. I'll probably put my ignorance on grand display, but I just have to ask.
Anyone who's thought about, or replaced their spark plug wires with OE or Taylor wires can attest to the expense of these items, relative to other brands and wire sets for other cars.

I was complaining about the expense to a friend of mine the other day. He told me that he owned Ford cars since he was 16 ( He's 40, now) and he never replaced a spark plug wire for general maintenance; he just waited until there was a problem with one, then replaced the set. He said that a bad wire might arc, or cause a miss, but he would be able to drive the car to a parts shop and replace the wires.

My question for you folks is this: I've got 175,000 on the original wire set. I just replaced the plugs today. (Not a fun job, next time the manifold is coming off!)
Should one or more of my wires short out or just cause a miss, can this damage the engine ?

By the way, a great big kudo to the fellow who mentioned using a spray pump handle from a windex bottle to get the bit of oil out of the spark plug wells! Now I have to replace my valve cover gaskets, I guess.

 

[HopefulSHO]

Do thoes gaskets when you do the wires, or you'll foul your new wires up

The wires arcing shouldn't do any damage to the engine. if you leave them misfiring long enough though, you may overheat a converter. That's an extreme case of misfiring though.

 

[SHO--ripper]

You would be safe driving the car with a misfire. Once the plug wires start doing that i would order a new set from FordPartsNetwork and a gasket set from Autozone or MidwestSHO.