Warning! Spark Plug Change Damage !

[FordFasteRR]

Today I had a chance to work with SED on his strange engine noise.. his # 3 or 4 cylinder area is making a loud ticking sound ... not like the typical xd sound, but a real TICK / TACK load as hell sound !!

so we removed the valve cover and found this:

http://nitrousworld.com/images/shawn_engine_fuxor/p1010045.jpg

My guess is only 1 of 2 possible things...

1. bad casting with weak aluminum...
2. too much side-load when changing spark plugs caused the aluminum to snap off.

here is another pic of the damaged #3 plug socket..

http://nitrousworld.com/images/shawn_engine_fuxor/p1010046.jpg

now, there is a nasty sound coming from the cyl head area... we looked and looked and could not find any fragments of the aluminum that cracked off... my feelings are that it shattered and somehow made its way to the oil pan where it is now sitting ... it cant be sucked into the oil pump because there is a fine mesh screen that covers the inlet to the oil pump..

so we used brake parts cleaner to de-grease all of the upper cam lobes and mla's ... just looking for any damage but we could not find any... so we used some quick-steel to seal up the damaged plug shaft all the way up to the rubber valve cover seal area.. then we re-assembled everything...

here are the pics of the quick-steel repair we made...

http://nitrousworld.com/images/shawn_engine_fuxor/p1010047.jpg

ahh.. the magical world of quicksteel !!

http://nitrousworld.com/images/shawn_engine_fuxor/p1010048.jpg

so ultimately, we fixed the oil leak into the # 3 cylinder ... but we were unable to isolate the problem with the noise from the valve area ...

SED plans to locate a spare engine from ebay and swap the cylinder head from it onto his engine...

we did a cylinder compression test before we finished the job... all cylinders were at roughly 120 psi , give or take ... :)

[ilanpro]

And Fordfasterr does it again, Good job man I'm glad you are around.

[dragonfighter60]

So, what exactly snapped there? I can't quite tell cause I have never had my valve cover off.

[GTSTISL]

I cant believe someone would do that to his car. I mean really, who takes the time to put oily paper towels in someones engine?!?! :D

[FordFasteRR]

I cant believe someone would do that to his car. I mean really, who takes the time to put oily paper towels in someones engine?!?! :D

we were soaking up the oil to look for the aluinum particles.. we did not find any particles...

:)

[O_GT]

man I fix everything with quicksteel.Its the sh#*

[04Elantra]

i guess SED did not have any warranty left on his car if you went and did that.....if so..good job helping him out Ford...

if it was still under warranty, you should have made the dealership/service motherf***ers replace it before you quicksteeled

[slow 2K2GT]

I had almost the same thing happen to me. When I removed the valve cover to replace my cam, there was a piece of aluminum about the size of a messed up quarter, it came off what would be the floor of the head, its the same width (I think thats it, from heads thru to tails) as a quarter. I would post pics but I cant seem to get to nitrousworld to do so. Will try again later. Nice job BTW!

***EDIT***
From looking at the pics, the piece came from where your paper towels are, it just above where the #1 piston is.

[Tricked]

That is one dirty f-ing valve train. I have 70,000 on mine and recently fixed the small oil leak between the head and cover. Mine looked brand new compared to those pics. What would cause that?

[sed]

the fact that the motor had 40k miles on it before it had its first oil change might cause that...

I got the car with 47,000 miles on it from my brother and recently found out he ran it till the oil light came on and just added oil for the first 40,000 miles....

oh and he def. broke the head changing a plug, i talked to him last night and he said he had trouble getting a plug out when he "tried" to do a tune up and really had to "wrench" it out.

otherwise known as, i need a new motor. :(

ohwell, time to do some shopping.

I'll have a new motor in two - three weeks time.

shawn :)

and damn, yes Ford is a good guy and quite intelligent, but guys i am not helpless here, i just don't have a place to work on the car right now!

jeez stop making it out like i am some kind of moron!

[04Elantra]

sed...with the mods that you have done to your car, how can anyone make you look like a moron. It is obvious you know stuff about your car.

[sed]

just, the feeling was like ford was rescuing me from something lol, i got the car like this and wanted to hang out with him anyway, plus had to fix it... thats all

shawn :)

[Jmontigny]

I would highly consider swapping the whole motor. That is an aweful lot of aluminum running throught the motor. Who knows what the condition of the main bearings are. Also be interesting to see what the cam journals look like. If it was me I would not trust that motor. With the noise it is making it sounds like there may be issues already.

[sed]

yeah Jay, that is what i am doing.

I am sourcing a motor as we speak and ford and i will be doing the swap.

Its just not worth it when the junk yard wants 290 for a head and ebay wants 300 for a 17k motor!

shawn :)

oh and jay, any ideas why that casting would break so easily? (remember a drunk guy was trying to change plugs)

[cclngthr]

Most likely any stress from replacing plugs or any pressure on the plug shaft. I also think Jay mentioned (some time ago) that there could be problems with cracking and metal breakage on the Beta engine, which you might have a problem there.

I also would be checking the cam bearings as well as crank and rod bearings. I would not be surprized if some metal got lodged there.

[sed]

i'm not too worried about alum. inside the head or block, since i am replacing the whole long block assem.

Thanks for the thoughts everyone :)

shawn :)

[XTRAWLD]

All that from changing plugs.....holy. OK, so how do we prevent this? Pull...gently??

[sed]

don't put ANY side load when you are changing plugs....

means keep the ratchet extension 100% vertical at all time with no play to the sides.

shawn :)

[playboyz28]

put anti seize compound on the spark plug when you install them, and dont torque on those plugs...just snug..and then tighten a smidge bit.

The antiseize compound helps the next time you remove the plugs.

[FordFasteRR]

i am willing to bet that during the prior ownership of the car, it overheated and warped the head... that lead to the weakening and eventual cracking of the spark plug sleeve & it caused the cam to be mis-aligned which is whats causing the tapping since the back side of the # 3 & 4 intake cams are not touching the MLA's...

indicated by the black colored back sides of the lobes...

if they had contact, they would not be black.

[sed]

which sucks cause i didn't do it and i gotta fix it :(

[bikerPA]

I frickin' hate to resurrect threads like this, but this is relevant. What is proper torque spec for plugs? Webtech doesn't want to display images to me right now an' IE is hosed so I can't make it happen... and I've got plugs and want to change 'em out. If anyone has info, I'd like a number beyond "hand tight plus a little bit more." ;) thanks!

edit: my bad. Webtech has a 'search' feature. I merit my title up there under my name. :abovelol: To maybe save someone else the trouble: 15-22 lb-ft, 20-30 Nm, or three quarters of what a Civic puts out at 7000rpm.