Thread: A bad day at home

a little trick i have seen done before in a similar situation was.......

to use the metal part of one of the brake light globes.....pushed into the hole and then the plug screwed in......and it worked.......



as for drilling and tapping to fit a heli-coil.......some of the junk from drilling and tapping would definitely drop into the combustion chamber.......

This is dodgy but might just get you out of trouble....

remove the exhaust manifold. and roll the engine around to the exhaust stroke (on the relevant cyl), get the piston as close to TDC as you can and still have only the exhaust open.

make up a plate to cover the relevant exhaust port with a bit of inner tube for a seal and a thread adaptor for the aircompressor line.

bolt that up and heres hoping you have a good aircompressor

lock off the crank (manuals use a gear autos big spanner on the crank pully bolt) and plug up the air compressor

set it to 85+psi and you should get a healthy blast of air out of the spark plug hole.

. if you dont get a good stream of air out of the plug hole rotate the engine till you do.

if you do get a good air stream go at it while the compressed air lasts as tho you were doing it with the head off, slowly slowly is the secret. if the air pressure drops too much stop work, close the aircompressor valve off and let it build up again.

If you have one check the PSI your getting at the plug hole V the pressure from the compressor with a compression gauge (one of the types with the rubber seal not a screw in jobbie)

Its a gut instinct thing as to weather or not its worked, if in doubt remove the head.

best of luck.

Originally Posted by Bradtot

Had my sons 89 rangie here on sunday to do some maintenence
Started with cleaning and flushing radiator, then fix exhaust leak at flange then tighten all exhaust bolts replace rear switch on tailgate for interior light, drill out and retap threads for holding down rear seat, fit another rear seat with armrests ot of a vogue, put rubber sleeve over metal rubbing on aircon hose, grease uni's and propshaft's. Tighten and loctite the steering drop arm back on properly (it had come loose) check and confirm muffler has holes in it and needs replacing
Now while flushing rad and refilling I noticed the rear r/hand side sparkplug moving with the motor running so I thought why is this plug loose?
I have just rebuilt this motor and made it a 4.2 so the heads were done up and checked?
any way I went to tighten plug and it just kept spinning around...it was stripped. I got another plug and screwed in and it was tight but not tight enough. Went for a spin and the plug blew out of the hole completely. I was hoping to buy some time but it was not to be.
I said to my son he can have my old silver rangie to drive while this one gets helecoiled.
I went to move it from my backyard and my daughter had parked her magna (which we are trying to sell) just behind my old rangie at an angle on the left side, now I knew it was there but forgot and reversed into the right rear quarter panel and pushed it in.
so from one rangie plug to denting my daughters car I had a real good day
I am so peeved off and sick of working on cars.
Now does any one know if u can helecoil a sparkplug thread withthe heads on?
As this is r/hand rear it is accesible but dont know about swarf etc.
has anyone done this and can advise?
Any help appreciated before I loose my cool
anyone want to buy a real good slightly dented well looked after 89 magna for $1200
?
Regards
Brad

Brad, had the same thing happen to me (the stripped plug, not the denting incident), I used some heavy grease on the tap (in the flutes) to collect the majority of the swarf. After the heli-Coil I made up a small flexible tube (clear plastic hose about 1/4" i.d.) and made a cone shaped connection for my Vacuum cleaner and sucked away till no more swarf came out, make sure that piston is at TDC. Left that plug out and started the engine to get rid of anything that I missed, took less than an hour and no problems since, hope it works for you, regards Frank.

If all dads were as good as you, bradtot.

Family is a wonderful thing.

GQ

Most computer shops sell cheap little vacuum cleaner adaptors, that are - as the chap said above - a small flexi hose - but these have the fitting that fits on the nozzle of the vac. About $15.00

I have used mine for, as well as getting the c**p out of keyboards and computer fans, (connected to a VAX) to suck oil out of a car air con compressor

See attached

It a little alloy swarf wont hurt, it will burn up fast enough.

I had one stripped on my subaru - watched the guys at the head shop do it. They moved the piston to near TDC but not all the way - they then feed in an oiled lint free cloth into the combustion chamber. The logic being the the cloth stops any bits of metal going into the head - but if it does the oil should hold it stopping it going down at the side of the piston. The guy did the job and virtually nothing went down as the had a small vaccum sucking as he did the job. He slowly eased out the cloth and the few bits that had gone in were stuck to the cloth by the oil. He then vacuumed out the combustion chamber - worked great and was cheap to get done.

Garry

Originally Posted by Tank

I used some heavy grease on the tap (in the flutes) to collect the majority of the swarf. .

a mate of mine did this last week when he needed to enlarge a hole in his exhast manifold up stream of his turbo, he had to drill and than tap, no problems, turbo is still spinning