Animus

I stepped on the accelerator and suddenly I hear a loud PFFFFFFT, I can't move and the car sounds wierd. I suspected, I lost a hose. I pull over and upon inspecting the engine, I find my spark plug still attached to the wire completely out of the 4th cylinder. It won't go back in. I then put it in another cylinder, but the other spark plug won't go in the 4th. I'm starting to think its cross threaded. I checked the bad spark plug before I put it in the other cylinder and it didn't look that bad. Any ideas? If it is cross threaded any fixes, besides removing the head? I'm scared of dropping shaving in the cylinder if I try to thread it. Even though its aluminum and wouldn't evenutally melt away, I don't want tos core the edges of the wall.......HELP

MM951

You can get a spark plug tap for about $4 at Autozone. IRRC its m14x 1.5 Just don't move the engine at all and blow it out throughly with compressed air and you will be fine.

good luck
mike

Animus

Thanks Mike. What about Timeserts? Good fix or not? It seems to work, but i'm not so sure about drilling the head out to 9mm and then adding this steel insert...

theedge

When you tap it, put grease on the tap so that it catches the bits of metal.

cosmo303

Tape a hose to a vacuum nozzle and try to get any bits that may fall in.

Animus

Bad news. It looks like the plug took some of the thread with it on its way out. I tried tapping it and I noticed that the tap sinks lower than in the other cylinders. The tap probably only caught the last surviving threads. When I try to put the plug in, it sinks low and is too short to start the surviving threads. Is a Timesert or Hellacoil my only option?

FRporscheman

This happened to a friend in his 968. He had it helicoiled and it's been holding up great - he's done a few long road trips including to Canada and back, no issues.

CurtP

Timesert is the better way to do it, but a Helicoil will work too.