Broke a plug off. :-(

[fear4fun]

My cold start has been terrible as of late. Bought some plugs and was changing them today. Without any warning the 2nd plug in snapped right off. There is about 3/4" of thread still in the block, I had barely gotten the plugged backed out. Strangely I was already past that initial really hard turn, it had free up and turned a few turns nicely and then snapped.

Anyway, I'm looking for advice. Should I leave it? With that much thread left in there is plenty of compression. Should I risk it and try to have my mechanic remove it? He wasn't very optimistic when he looked at it? Should I shell out the big bucks and have the head removed to do it the labour intensive way? The advantage with this is that I could to the timing chain at the same time, it is due to be done. The downside to this for me is that I am a full-time student with three kids and a stay at home wife/mom, so money is really tight. (Tight isn't the best word, lets try would-be-borrowing-from-parents-to-afford-this).

What are the thoughts of the community?

[RichD]

Oh dear. Once I broke the ceramic part of a spark plug during a change in a rather tight spot. I extracted the remains and use a shop vac and a tiny hose adapted with duct tape to get in there and clean it all up. The truck has run for another 10 years.

If I understand your situation, the actual threads of the glow plug broke off. IMO, you need to extract it and clean up the resulting mess before turning that engine. I would pull the head.

[Golf Cart]

Drill out the remaining paret of the plug so you can get an "easy out" into it. Just dont drill all the way through the piece if you can avoid it. Drilling out the centre will automatically ease off the pressure of whats left. after you get it out , take a strong magnet and a piece of coat hanger. Insert the coat hanger down into the head with it being energized by the magnet. Work it around the top of the cylinder as gingerly as you can to pick up any last little metal shavings if there is any. The length of coat hanger will be determined by how far the top of the piston is in the cylinder. Put a little bend into the end of the coat hanger to give you a better area to swish around with. Even if there is any shavings left over, they wont take long to burn off.

I've done this a few times this way. Its nothing new. Just take your time.

Good luck

[jessef]

X2 about tap/extract it out. May want to get someone who's done it before to do it.

Only the valve cover needs to come off to replace the timing chain.

[RichD]

The little rig I set up to clean out the ceramic shards should work for what the guys are suggesting too. Attach a small funnel and some hose to the end of your vacuum (i.e. a reducer) and then use the small hose to clean out the shavings from the tap.

You can do this!

[fear4fun]

A friend of mine directed me to his heavy duty mechanic friend with a shop at his house. He took a look at it and went into action. A couple of hours, a few laughs, some welding bolts to the plug and it was out. Best part was it worked out to much less than half what my mechanic said the best case senario was.

No shards or shavings, no vacuum needed!!

Thanks for all your help!

[TardisDeli]

Dont run the engine with the broken bit inside, saw a piston ruined with just that little end bit (amazing hole it made in the metal piston). Christine.