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By "counter torque" I mean use both hands on the ratchet or breaker bar, don't just grab the end of the ratchet and pull. Assuming this is like most 4-bangers you'll put the ratchet/extension/socket on the plug, swing the ratchet around so it's off to the left, grab the "head" end of the ratchet with your right hand, handle with your left, and pull steadily with the left while you hold pressure with the right hand, so that you are exerting a "clean" torque, as opposed to if you just drop the wrench down on the plug and give the handle of the ratchet a yank.
This would be so much easier to show you than tell you.
I didn't know about "counter torque" till I went through the Navy Nuke program, in the about 20 years I messed with cars up to that point I broke off and buggered way more bolts/nuts/etc. than after I learnt what Uncle Rickover had to teach. Probably a good beginning auto mechanics class would go over this.
This is the trouble when you are self-taught, sometimes some fundamentals are not obvious and unless someone tells you or you do a lot of reading, you have to learn it the hard way.
Surely there is a "Fonzi" type of guy in your neighborhood who would be willing to show you the ropes?
It's impossible to say in words how much torque is too much trying to get the plugs out. That's a "feel" thing you'll develop.
Keep in mind that all the crusty old car guys here at one time knew less than you do now. You are already head and shoulders above all "...those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat"
If the "metal will be expanded", meaning the metal in the head, don't you think the spark plug will also expand?
Never try to remove a plug from anything but a cold engine, especially if the head is aluminum.
I didnt know that ALL metals expanded at the same rate ......I learned something....Here I was all these years thinking that some metals would get hotter quicker than other metals and was wrong ..Thanks for this very important technical information.. Im happy we have experts here to teach us................lol
Last edited by Nativechief; 12-02-2010 at 04:25 PM..
Every factory manual that I have for cars (or bikes) with aluminum heads recommends doing the spark plug change with the motor cold.
In my experience, it's a lot easier to avoid stuck plugs by changing them fairly often, and using anti-seize on the spark plug threads. That does not help the OP though.
Aluminum definitely expands more than steel when heated an equal amount, offhand it would be hard to say if the spark plug holes get smaller or larger as the head heats up, but most of them are massive enough I would expect them to get smaller.
years ago on alloy heads it wasn't seized threads it was a wicked hard carbon ring on the plug base. That carbon was so hard it would cut the head side threads. I don't know if this is the problem here. In my shop I made it a rule to drive any car that had seeming stuck threads, if then that still didn't work the crew was to come let ME deal with it.
Another part of the problem then was Bosche plugs which I liked well were breaking and deemed defective eventually. That was costly in terms of time, getting the threads out.
I changed to all NGK plug then, and never went back since. Still the carbon was a problem, and the well warmed engine did work and the threads were saved for it IMO. I am not talking about 1 or 2 cars a year but 20-60+ a day over years.
A few hundred? Are you adding it to your bathwater?
(I once knew a guy that would spray WD-40 on his elbows for arthritis. He claimed it helped)
Nope brother I work in a oil refinry and break bolts for a living, the first thang we do is walk the job out before I can get a permit to work, generaly I bring a can of kroil oil when I look at the job and spray all the bolts, unions or any other fastners that I'm gona work on with the magical solution, then in a few hours or so when I get the permit most everythang comes apart so much easier, and you thought gasoline came out of the ground.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Merovee
Which is better to loosen spark plugs up? PB Blaster or Liquid Wrench?
These spark plugs require a spark plug deep socket to get out so they are in there.
My knee jerk is PB Blaster.
My secondary response is to ask if this is an F-150. If it is, take it to a Ford mechanic before you break a spark plug, have it drop into the engine and have to get a tow truck to take it to a Ford mechanic.
*EDIT* ---- Nevermind ---- *EDIT*
Last edited by jimboburnsy; 12-02-2010 at 11:21 PM..
Reason: Needed to read more than the first post...
I didnt know that ALL metals expanded at the same rate ......I learned something....Here I was all these years thinking that some metals would get hotter quicker than other metals and was wrong ..Thanks for this very important technical information.. Im happy we have experts here to teach us................lol
You're welcome.
Any time you need further schooling, just let me know.
I have always been under the impression that heating things isn't really what helps free up something that's stuck, but it is actually when they begin to cool down at differing rates that helps you free them.
I dunno KoobleKar. This past summer I put 190 psi to some bolts that were rusted up hard with my CP 1/2 drive impact gun and it stopped that bad boy before it got started.
With Mr. Hot Wrench I made these bolts almost white hot, and still the gun had a real bad time. If I didn't have that heat those bolts would still be there and the job never done. I even swapped out air lines to be 5/8th inch ID for max impact. The plan was get these rusty bolts out or blow my gun to bits.
I raced that gun with one from Ingersol Rand once. It was a newer gun then of course, and it turned the supposedly equal Rand backwards before the socket broke. I really recommend safety glasses and some body armor if you ever try that stupid stunt. That hurt.
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