Buck01

Yesterday I left work headed for home. I got about 5 miles down the road.
I made a stop at a stopsign and turned onto the next road.
I got about 100 feet and all of a sudden. The truck got really LOUD and lost power. I coasted to the side of the road. I thought I must have blown a newly installed header gasket or something. I got out of the truck and the noise was coming from under the hood not under the truck. I opened the hood I was running my hand around the header searching for the leak.
As I leaned in I got hit with a face full of hot air?????
I looked down and my number one spark plug had come out of the head and was hanging there by the plug wire!!!!!!!!

I was able to put the plug back in once I got a socket. I drove the rest of the way home no issues.

Anyone else ever heard of anything like that???

Just thought I would share my story.

Joel

jimbo74

sure the threads arent damaged? if it was in fine mechanical condition there is no explanation for this... the only thing i ca nthink of is whoever changed the sparkplugs before did not properly tighten it and the vibration eventually made it work itself loose

Jays4Runnin

I personally have not but my roomate has before. When he was changin his plugs in his sebring he put too much anti-seize grease on the plug threads, and he must have not properly torqued the plug and it popped out. But if you havent changed you plugs recently, then you should call the ghostbusters, because your rig is possesed

MTL_4runner

When I worked as a mechanic I saw a few vehicles with dents in the hood that came in complaining of that same thing.

PirateFins

I've seen it where there was a hole in the hood where the spark plug shot thru. That was funny, until we thought about it. What if it had done it while we were working on it? Ouch.

Buck01

It was in late January or Feb that I had the head replaced. That is the last time the plugs were touched. I am assuming that it just wasn't tight and vibrated till it came out. I don't think the threads were messed up. I was able to put it back in and it tighten down ok.

I can't belive all of you have seen or heard of this before. This is the first time I had ever heard of it.

oh well guess it wasn't new. : )

arjan

Somebody recently had this, and it took the threads out also. In that case the plug was over torqued and they stripped the thread out of the head. That was quite a pricey fix as I remember. Defenately keep an eye on it for a while.

SupraSport

This happened to me last year driving home for christmas break from college. Almost exact same thing happened to my Hilux. The previous owner had cross threaded #2 spark plug (due to wierd angle they have) and it vibrated loose and blew off ripping out about 3 thread coils. I RAN a mile or so to a kmart in the town, bought the tools I needed and cross threaded it back in. When I got home I had to retap the hole and I put a $5 healer coil in. 20k later still running good.

As stated above check to see if all your threads are still there, cause chances are, the spark plug blew out ripping out a couple.

Buck01

Well it looks like I do have a problem with the threads. The plug came loose again.
I am carrying a socket and rachet for now.

Do I need to remove the head to retap the hole and then put a helicoil in place?

I have never done anything like that before so any info would be great.

Thanks

Joel

PirateFins

Might have been me, your thinking about. I broke the plug off in the head leaving the plug threads in the head. It was expensive but worth it because I found my valves were gone and had the head rebuilt.

Joel,
You can retap the head while it is still in there. Bring the piston up to TDC and stuff a rag in there to keep the chips out (just remeber to take it out when your done. In the mean time try putting 3 or 4 rounds of Teflon tape (the stuff used for pipe fittings) around the sparkplug threads to give you more "meat" on them.

arjan

Brad, I don't think it was you, it was somebody with a 3.4L. The plug shot right out, taking the threads with it.

Tacoclimber

Wow, other than having to run to a Kmart, I had the EXACT same thing happen in my 82. Even had to put the heli-coil in... My truck went another 30K with no issues, then I sold it.

Buck01

SO is there anything special I need to know to put the helicoil in there. Just runa tap through it and then run the helicoil in and use a punch on the end of the threads??

does that sound about right?

Tacoclimber

What I actually did (I was in high school, so this is a little cheap) was put the heli-coil in and get a smaller sparkplug that would fit the now-smaller diameter hole. I talked to the parts guy, and he gave me a plug that was comparable to the other plugs. From that point on, I just got three of the orginal plug size and one of the new plug. Admittedly, this isn't the BEST way to go, but it worked, and worked well. The heli-coil I used came (if I remember right) with a dew different sizes, and a tool to install it. It was pretty straightforward. Keep in mind that I did this back in H.S., and a few years have passed, but that's what I remember.

Buck01

I stopped and bought a helicoil kit last night. It comes with the tap and several different size helicoils. The guy at the counter said to run the tap and put the supplied loctite on the outside threads of the helicoil and run it into the new threads and it should be good. He did also say to use a shop vac or something to pull out any small pieces of metal that may occur. He said like you guys that it was not nessecary to remove the head to do this. He said just follow the instructions and it would be fine.

The first line of the instructions say REMOVE HEAD. lol

Anyway I am gonna try stuffing a rag in there and doing the shop vac and just see what happens. The worst thing that could happen is I ruin the head and have to buy another one after only 3 or 4 months. : ) I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks for all the info.

PirateFins

Drill straight as possible. Make sure to let the locktite dry fully and get any off that might be on the new internal threads before putting the plug back in. You don't want to locktite the plug in there. Also if you are going to use a shop vac to aid in clean up, you can take a smaller diameter piece of tubbing (that will fit in the plug hole) and duck tape it to the shop vac hose. Stick it inside the cyl. to get more of any chips that might be in there. Another good trick is to leave the plug out, remove the coil, and crank the motor to blow it out even more (do this as the last step before putting the plug in).
Good luck!