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@#%@#$%@#$!!!!!

D

dairdevyld

Veteran CEG'er
Joined
Oct 23, 2006
Messages
980
Location
Bristol/Waterbury/New Britain, CT
Ok so I'm driving home from work yesterday when all of a sudden my car jumps into this weird lumpy rumbly gargly burblish idle. Fearing the worst I pull to the side of the road and put the car in nuetral and begin searching for the culprit of the very unsettling sound. Going to the most obvious place first I found the displeasing noises accomplice, a blown spark plug.

Now when I say blown I mean the spark plug was sitting on top of the intake manifold still attached to the wire just not screwed into its rightful position. So after limping my poor baby home on five cylinders, I attempted to rectify the wrong by reinserting said spak plug into his natural habitat. The obvious fun was realizing that it was not only one of the rear plugs, but the farthest right. After burning myself several times and cutting my poor innocent hand on a few jagged edges within the realms of the rear of the engine, it became frightfully apparent that the spark plug was not content in his once calm and peaceful kingdom of combustion.

The dilemma I face is rather perplexing since anyone with any kind of automotive savvy knows that a spark plug that won't screw back in means one of two things 1.) Engine gremlins or 2.) the existence of the dreaded stripping/cross-thread monster. Now since I plan on swapping in a 3 liter with 3 liter heads very soon this dilemma becomes not so immense, however being my daily driver for now this also is further cause for alarm and dismay.

Being the intelligently handsome devil that I am I figured I would turn to my very knowledgeable CEG compadres for advice. Is there a way I can fix the damaged threads without really dipping into my 3 liter savings? Or should the car just sit until I have the funds to either complete the swap or fix the problem?

I've been offered a number of solutions like JB welding the spark plug back into place, an idea I consider an 11 on a 1-10 scale of bad things to do. So please someone help me out!!!:confused:
 
YEAH, that really sucks when that happens!

But, you can get a Re-thread repair tool from Autozone or advanced, that will basically create a new area for the spark plug to thread into...its like an Insert that gets tapped into place, and then the spark plug threads into that... the only problem will be to make sure you get any metal flakes and bits out of the combustion chamber before starting up the car...

A good extendable magnet tool will help do the job! :)

Good Luck fixing it! And if you need help, let me know... or contact me when you are ready to do the 3L...
 
Had the same thing happen to me last December,,,,it was a front bumper side plug so a bit easier to fix..I thought my motor was done for a bit but then I found the above mentioned thread fix and it has been running strong ever since with no sign of trouble,, very easy and cheap fix..good luck
 
aircougar said:
A good extendable magnet tool will help do the job! :)
Click to expand...

Don't overlook this! Make sure to get one of these cuz they are the most useful things EVER when working on an engine! I never realized how important it was until I witnessed three bolts disappear in my engine bay :help: . You won't regret it later :cool: .
 
arent the heads aluminum?
if so a magnet tool won't help.

one thing you can do though, is fill the grooves of the tap with vaseline or grease. that way when you are tapping the hole the chips will stick to the grease and not fall into the cylinder.
 
bad jb weld, bad...as pointed out i think the retapping is the best/easiest solution and by the way i love the wording in your post dave...it made me chuckle, haha
 
dairdevyld said:
That I am, That I am.

P.S. Tony go frolic on the beach with your women. I'm gonna kick your ass if I see you post one more time before Sunday.
Click to expand...

Trust me, I've had plenty of time on the beach and at the pool. We're checking out tomorrow morning and heading up to Miami for Friday and Saturday before we come home.
 
ElKy said:
arent the heads aluminum?
if so a magnet tool won't help.

one thing you can do though, is fill the grooves of the tap with vaseline or grease. that way when you are tapping the hole the chips will stick to the grease and not fall into the cylinder.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I thought so too... But a similar thing happened when I had someone put spark plugs in while I was doing something else...He stripped one of the plugs really bad! I rethreaded the spark plug hole, and used the magnet tool to pick up any pieces that fell into the chamber...I don't know how it worked since the heads are aluminum...

The grease trick can work, but you still have to be extremely careful that it doesn't fall in anyway because its 6"-7" down to the spark plug hole... Gonna be a B!### to get in there to clean it up either way you look at it...
 
Same thing happened to me. Among other things I used a vaccuum cleaner with some 1/4" ID (or so) tubing taped to the crevice tool. I also used some masking tape on an old antenna (sticky side out) to pick up shavings. Grease on the tap helped too.

The NAPA kit worked well. Car has been running fine since around January.
 
ah..i forgot about that approach...
i made a tool like that years ago using some heater hose and a piece of brakeline.
i originally made it for getting sand out of small crevises of my cars.
 
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