At least one has gone bad and needs replacement, so I plan on replacing both of course. What degree of difficulty am I looking at if I attempt it myself? Thanks in advance.

 

you have to remove the upper intake, not a big deal

 

On a scale of 1 to 40 years old, how large are your hands.

 

How old and good are your plug wires, if getting old, consider replacing them with a good set of 8 mm silicone wires.

 

Was going to do that as well while I had the IM off. The truck would run for a while, then shut down. After about twenty minutes, it would start again. A mechanic of unknown pedigree thought it was the coil. Possibly heating up and shutting the engine down. Thoughts.

 

I would say just slightly too big unfortunately.

 

What fault code numbers are you showing, what you describe is not a common fault of the coil pack which normally will just throw a misfire code.
You may have a crank position sensor failing which can stall the engine and or make it hard to restart.

 

Haven't had the chance to get codes read yet. We'll see what they say.

 

In the future never do a repair until you have the codes read, other wise you will just be guessing and spending money that is not needed.

 

When my coil pack went bad, I had misfire codes on two cylinders. I first replaced the spark plugs, then used an old plug to test the wires. Mount the old plug in the wire with the code and crank the engine in the dark. No spark means it's either a bad wire or coil pack. Personally, I wouldn't tear it down without being prepared to replace both the wires and the coil packs. I'd rather do that than have to tear it down again. There are some here who are able to replace plug wires without taking off the upper IM. I'm not one of them. Get a couple of old blankets to lay on top of the engine so you can lay on them while working at the back of the engine. I did mine when it was a balmy 2 degrees outside. Not very much fun. When I put mine back together and went for a test drive, it felt like a hot rod.