plug broke; small chip fell into hole

[ryanweather]

Well, this has been a not-so-good day. I am trying to change by plugs. However, they are fused on there pretty bad. In attempt to undo one of them, it broke and a small chip fell into the piston head hole. What are my options now?

 

[gmanpaint]

Was it the ceramic portion of the spark plug? The only thing i can think of is to use a strong vacuum. Try a shop vac with the small crevice tool. Duct tape a length of rubber tube to the end of that, stick it in the plug hole, and turn it on. Might get lucky and get it to come out. Clean the shop vac real good, so you can look inside it to see if it did indeed come out.

Just one idea.

 

[ryanweather]

thanks i'll give it a shot

 

[budwich]

tape a straw to a vacuum and suck away.

 

[ryanweather]

When I shine a light into the hole and see a small piece of white, does that mean it is in fact the part from the plug? Could it be a different part inside the piston head that is suppose to be there? Just want to make sure cause my vacuum thing is not working. Going to try some different ends (straws, tubes, etc).

 

[jlsparky7]

When I shine a light into the hole and see a small piece of white, does that mean it is in fact the part from the plug? Could it be a different part inside the piston head that is suppose to be there? Just want to make sure cause my vacuum thing is not working. Going to try some different ends (straws, tubes, etc).

Could be carbon buildup.

 

[gmanpaint]

Can you reconstruct the broken plug? Make sure it is missing a piece? Besides the vacuum idea, maybe a fresh tire plug slipped in the hole will stick to the piece of the plug and you can carefully extract it.

The fact that you can see it, means the piston is on the high side of the stroke. and closer to the plug hole. If you can see it, you might be able to grab it. Surgical hemostats?

 

[jremington59]

Just take your house vac and tape a straw to the end of the suction hose. If you have the crevice tool for furniture that would make it easier. It doesn't need to be taped completely tight, just good enough to get good draw through the straw....

 

[ryanweather]

Well, now i'm not sure if it's the porcelain or just the metal that shines when my light hits it...

So I installed the new plug, but the threads seem to be so messed up that it's out about 1/4 of an inch. I'm guessing that's bad. any ideas?

I decided to try and start the truck with only one plug finished and the other one that is somewhat finished but sticking out about 1/4" and the truck misses terribly. I don't know, maybe I need to bring it in to get re threaded. This has been a total nightmare. Just lost my job and trying to save money. The plug I'm having issues with is the middle on the passenger side. There's just no room to work, even with the wheel off (which is the direction I took) and splash shield removed. I have to use a swivel with the socket, but that seems to tilt the plug up and down and jar it loose when trying to tighten it. I think that may be what threw the threads off in the first place.

My questions now are:

1) would having the plug out about 1/4" of an inch cause the sputtering in the engine when trying to start it?

2) If there was something in the piston chamber, would I have known by something cataclysmic occuring?

3) What's the best way to re thread the plug hole with minimal room to work?

All of you have been so helpful. I just want you to know I appreciate all the feedback. I'm not use to these Explorers at all. I have 204k on the truck and have never worked on anything in the engine (including plugs). My Saab on the other hand has had almost everything done...

2001 XLT V6 4.0

 

[jremington59]

It most certainly would cause it to miss and run bad. And it sounds like you cross threaded the plug when you put it in

Take the plug back out and see if you can get another one to start in correctly. If the hole is a little rusty dont be afraid of giving the hole a little squirt of wd 40 to clean the threads a little. If you cant see the hole, reach your finger down there and feel it so you know where the plug should start and at what angle. It would probably be best to get a new plug with fresh threads..... If it is so tight that you are forcing it then it's not started right....

 

[corkey]

plug rethread tool, does it from the bottom up, no shavings inside,

http://toolmonger.com/2007/05/22/re-tap-spark-plug-threads-safely/

 

[robertoa1a]

That porcelain can scratch the cylinder wall. Plug depth is important. The threads should be cleaned with a tap. It would be nice to have a borescope for inspection.

I would hate to see anyone have to replace an engine over a plug.

 

[gmanpaint]

That tool will do the trick, and Autozone has it for $30.00

 

[corkey]

$30 is better than a rebuild job, ,

 

[shmelmafinga]

I'm not sure but I think I missed something... did you get the broken parts of the plug out yet? Don't start your engine again if you don't have a complete set of sparkplug jigsaw pieces.

If you get your new plug to seat properly it won't do you any good with a chunk of porcelain in your combustion chamber.

The drama is killing me... Good luck!

 

[gmanpaint]

For even more room to work, remove the actual wheel well liner itself. Not to hard to do, and gives you a heck of a lot more room. If there was a chunk of spark plug in there, hopefully it made its way out the exhaust. Getting that plug to seat all the way properly is your concern now. Keep us updated on your progress.

 

[ryanweather]

I'm not sure there is any porcelain down there. I put together the jig saw (with very minor pieces probably still on the floor. There's about 10 pieces total. But when I started the truck nothing sounded funny except the missing part, which I'm contributing to the spark plug not being all the way in. Oh, gotta run real quick will write more later.

 

[ryanweather]

Update; sort of...

Okay, back to the possible porcelain thing. It seems like a small white piece inside the hole. I tried vacuuming the hole with various tube sizes but nothing happened. Then I took a hanger to see if maybe the white piece is stuck in there, but after no luck, I'm not sure it even is porcelain...but then again it could be. Well, since I had been working on the issue for about 5 hours straight, I decided to put it together and try starting it up; figuring that if there was porcelain in there it would cause major destruction and I would know it by firing up the engine. I could be totally wrong here, maybe the piston just pushes by the porcelain and I don't hear anything wrong?

So that's where I am now. I'm going to buy the tool everyone is recommending to re thread the hole considering I must have messed up the threads. This has all done a number on my hands too; it's even hard now to type they hurt so bad.

 

[ryanweather]

Conclusion

Well, to conclude: I had the truck towed to Precision Tune by my house. I had it towed because it was missing and my it's free through my insurance. On a side note; the tow driver put truck in neutral to get out of my garage. He started pushing it out and I stopped him and said, don't you want to get in the truck so you can put on the break before it starts rolling when it hits the drive-way? He said "I got it." Well, sure enough it starts rolling and he starts opening the door. However, there's not much room between the door and the garage door, which he quickly realized he made a mistake and inadvertently got his arm caught between the door of the truck and the garage door. I ran around to the back of the truck and he was able to escape; arm okay.

Precision tune called and said they would re thread and replace all plugs and cables for 150. Considering the pain it's been for me, I said yes.

Oh, and the missing is gone. Yeah, as it turns out, after we got the truck off the tow truck, one of the mechanics looked under the hood and realized I had taken off one of the wire boots off the plug and forgot to replace it on the drivers side (since I was working on the passenger side, I'd forgotten about it). He replaced it and the truck fired right up, no problems; even with the other plug still stuck out about 1/4".

That's it, thanks again for all your help!

 

[gmanpaint]

Good news! Glad your back on the road again! Crazy how something so small can snowball into major deal. Sorry we couldn't get you to do it yourself and save you some of that cash for other things like food!

Stick around on this forum, and you will be amazed what you can learn in here & what you would be willing to try after you find out how much support is available.

Cheers.