So I overtightened a spark plug and broke it. Thread's still in there, core and all the rest came out easily. It's completely fucked.

So, now that I've had time to recover from the shock, what can I do? Is there some way of getting that sucker out of there? or do I have pull the entire engine apart?

 

Drill and tap a left-hand thread into what is left of the plug. Otherwise, you could attempt to tap it out using a pin punch and a hammer, although if it's tight then I doubt that will work.

Aluminium housings = slight tweak when tightening spark plugs.

 

That really sucks! Sometimes a left hand drill bit is all you need. You may also want to check out sears because craftsman makes some tools for this situation.

 

Oh yeh. I shouldn't have to say to be extremely careful not to get metal chips inside the housing.

 

you can get it out several ways.

1) easy out it. there in-expencive and easy to do.

2) hile(sp) coil it, witch is baicly drilling the whole thing out and adding a sleeve that has the same width thread.

3) get a punch and tap it at an angle ans slowly work it out.

4) if its sticking out a bit you can always get a dremel cut a line and use a large screwdriver to unscrew it... but i dont realy think this will work on some thing as big as a sparkplug. you would need one hell of a large screwdriver and lots of strength

 

Front leading plug too, hard to get at. There's nothing stcking out, it's right in there. Mate of mine reckoned a multi-spline extractor was the way to go, so it's off to the hardware store to see what they've got.

 

I'm suprised it actually broke instead of stripping the threads in the housing out.

 

is it a leading plug or trailing plug? if its leading , well you need to get it out....if its a trailing plug, ground the plug wire and forget about it.... you could very easily damange the motor removing it so be carefull

 

Well, it's got to come out either way. I'd have to plug the hole somehow (the whole middle part came out), plus having a plug sticking in there too far can't be good.

Definately lucky it broke instead of stripping the thread, but I hear it's not hard to repair.

I guess it still might have been damaged, i won't really be able to tell until it comes out and a new plug goes in.

My parts guy in town reckons he can't get BR8EQ-14's and BR8ET's (the kind it was, incidentally) cost $18 each. So it looks like i'll have to find a way to get some posted up from somewhere better.