My 2003 ford taurus stopped working. I thought it might be the spark plugs so I replaced the ones in front, but not the ones in back yet. The car still won't turn over. A friend said that when I put the key in the run position he couldn't hear the fuel pump kick on. It died while driving it and wouldn't restart...could it be a fuel pump problem or is there anything else it could be?

Follow your spark plug wires down to the spark plugs. They go.in order by the sides of the engine. So left side of engine starting from front to back is 1,2,3. Right side front to back is 4,5,6. So, it should be the wire that is connected to the spark plug on the left back of the engine.

Buy valve cover gasket kit with plug tube seals .. remove valve cover.. Clean everything .. replace seals replace valve cover gasket and reinstall valve cover. Clean sparkplug wires connectors.. Try Rockauto .com for this part about $25. about 1/2 price of local auto parts store. Tighten Valve cover screws to correct torque specs.. for best job.

USING WRONG TYPE SPARK PLUGS. THE SPARK PLUGS TOO LONG.

"Front" indicates front of the vehicle

sounds like your wires are switched around. have replaced the plugs lately

Coil pack should in the front top of motor, with engine running remove one spark plug wire at a time from coil pack ( careful not to get shock ) they should all have spark, if one don't replace coil pack.

Firing order is 1-4-2-5-3-6 Cylinders are numbered as such: Standing in front of the car looking at the engine the cylinders farthest from you on the back side of the engine are from left to right, 1-2-3 and on the front side closest to you from left to right 4-5-6.

Not trying to insult your intelligence, I'm going to get pretty basic here,

Looking at the Front of the engine, the spark plug order is 1, 2, 3, and 4. Front to back.

Looking at the distributor, it has two mounting screws for the distributor cap. One is close to the engine, the other screw is on the other side.

Looking at the distributor cap screw, on the Far side away from the engine, Number 1 spark plug is on the tower to the Left of it.

To the right of this distributor cap screw, is Number 2 spark plug tower.
The rotor turns clockwise.

Again, looking at the distributor from a top view, there is a distributor cap screw at the top, (Close to engine), and a distributor cap screw at the bottom.

Drawing an imaginary line from the top screw to the bottom screw, Number 1 spark plug wire goes to the Left, of the bottom mounting screw.

Firing Order is 1-3-4-2
The rotor turns Clockwise, (To the right)

I am assuming you have the 3.0L Duratec engine. Although the job seems daunting, it's actually easy to remove the upper half of the intake manifold plenum. This took me about 40 minutes to remove the first time I did it, and leaves the rear three spark plugs wide open.

A good repair manual such as the Chilton's manual for the 1996-2005 Ford Taurus has the step-by-step. You should get a new set of intake plenum seals (from Ford or most auto parts stores, which may have to special order them) along with the spark plugs. The seals are a set oval rings made of silicone rubber. Yours may not need them but if you damage one getting the plenum off, or if they have shrunk with age, you'll be glad you got them. They're about $16 a set.

whats the problems with your spark plug? you didn't wrote...