Did my plugs today, turned 100K miles!

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twinblown
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Did my plugs today, turned 100K miles!

Postby twinblown » Sun Apr 11, 2010 3:46 pm

Last Friday I turned 100,000 miles (highway miles) I had already bought the plugs so this morning I went for it and decided I was gonna try and remove them (passanger side) without having to remove the plenum, the throtle body or any other stuff as per the service manual. I DID! :D Removing the side bracket that holds the plenum is a must and was the only thing i really removed...... so all you mechanicaly inclined people should have no problem in doing so, with a bit of patience and being creative with the tools (a wooble ext.) and your hands they do come off easily I may say. I do wonder why one of my plug cavities had engine oil in it, very odd, could that be seal down the plug shaft? if someone has some insight on this post up. I cleaned up as much as i could of the oil in the cavity and was able to clean it all when I removed that plug and it drain down to the cilynder, lt had to be done, the plug was tight as factory. I replaced all 6 plugs and next weekend Im going to be removing that one again to check inside.


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eieio
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Re: Did my plugs today, turned 100K miles!

Postby eieio » Sun Apr 11, 2010 5:31 pm

twinblown wrote:Last Friday I turned 100,000 miles (highway miles) I had already bought the plugs so this morning I went for it and decided I was gonna try and remove them (passanger side) without having to remove the plenum, the throtle body or any other stuff as per the service manual. I DID! :D Removing the side bracket that holds the plenum is a must and was the only thing i really removed...... so all you mechanicaly inclined people should have no problem in doing so, with a bit of patience and being creative with the tools (a wooble ext.) and your hands they do come off easily I may say.
Very good info! Thank You! :)

atc
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Postby atc » Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:43 pm

possibly spark plug O-ring on valve cover gasket

twinblown
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Postby twinblown » Tue Apr 13, 2010 6:16 am

Even if somehow the spark plug O-ring was bad there can not be oil shooting back from the cylinder into the cavity; seems like either some oil was left in there from the factory or your second guess: a pinched or poor seal of the rocker gasket around that plug cavity. Anyone have a pic. of the inside of a rocker cover?

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BMXPath
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Postby BMXPath » Tue Apr 13, 2010 6:41 am

Congrats! I did mine at 95,000 miles... what a pain! I dont think I removed the plenum bracket to do mine but I did remove the throttle body.
Interesting, I did have a bit of oil in one of mine too.

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AZ_Path
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Postby AZ_Path » Tue Apr 13, 2010 4:11 pm

twinblown wrote:Even if somehow the spark plug O-ring was bad there can not be oil shooting back from the cylinder into the cavity; seems like either some oil was left in there from the factory or your second guess: a pinched or poor seal of the rocker gasket around that plug cavity. Anyone have a pic. of the inside of a rocker cover?
I don't think the oil is from the cylinder. It's from the valves and the oil splashing around under the valve cover. It should be an easy and cheap fix. The O-rings are probably $10 - $15 and you just have to remove the valve cover to access them. Probably not a bad idea to take care of the valve cover gasket while your at it.

Edit: I think what you're calling the rocker cover, we're calling the valve cover.

twinblown
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Postby twinblown » Wed Apr 14, 2010 5:05 pm

Correct I am calling the valve cover, rocker cover. I understand it would be a easy fix it's just that to remove the pasenger side cover involves removing plenum and a whole other stuff, time consuming and I don't even wanna know what the dealer would want for that. Anyways I am hoping the oil was somehow left over at the factory and I do not have a leaky seal. I'll check on it this weekend.

twinblown
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Postby twinblown » Sat Apr 17, 2010 7:01 am

Update: after 500 miles driven took that one coil back out this morning to check and it is dry! :D
I now hope to drive the Path another 100,000 miles +

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pawjr74
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Postby pawjr74 » Sat Apr 17, 2010 10:34 am

Is it possible that it's getting oil in it when you're getting your oil change done? If you miss the oil fill opening the oil tends to run along the top of the valve cover and I could see it going into one of the cavities.

Image

twinblown
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Postby twinblown » Sat Apr 17, 2010 2:13 pm

Impossible, because it is the rear passenger side one.

driftedoffroad
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Postby driftedoffroad » Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:46 pm

Haha thats what I was going to say too about the oil getting in from filling....cause thats how mine got in there but obviously yours would not be the case. Good to see it was still dry though.

webmastir

Postby webmastir » Wed Apr 21, 2010 9:21 am

geez. never really noticed the oil fill hole position & the spark plug being located right below it, horrible design IMO.

WheatBread
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Postby WheatBread » Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:12 am

any tips on doing this without taking the plenum off? what size wobble extension did you use? any other extensions needed? how did you get the coil pack out?

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BMXPath
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Postby BMXPath » Wed Apr 28, 2010 9:38 am

WheatBread wrote:any tips on doing this without taking the plenum off? what size wobble extension did you use? any other extensions needed? how did you get the coil pack out?
I used every combo of extensions I had to change mine. It varied so much on the passenger side, and was so much trial-and-error, there is no way I can remember which combo I used for each cylinder.

The coils come out pretty easy, except the front one on the passenger side. The coil is too long, with the intake in the way, to pull straight out. I ended up seperating the top of the coil from the coil boot and got it out that way. I dont recommend this though, I partially tore the plug boot in the process.

The best "tool" to help with the job was about a 5/6 inch cutoff piece of fuel hose. It helped in removing the old plugs once I had them loose, and was priceless in getting the new plugs in with confidence that they werent going in cross-threaded.

twinblown
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Postby twinblown » Thu May 06, 2010 3:34 pm

WheatBread wrote:any tips on doing this without taking the plenum off? what size wobble extension did you use? any other extensions needed? how did you get the coil pack out?
I would recommend you remove one coil pack from the driver side and take a good look at how it is assembled, the coil pack does seperate from the rubber boot, if it did not it would be impossible to remove it (the passenger side ) without removing the plenum. I used a 3 inch wobble ext. a 8 inch and a 3 inch regular extension. As far as the plug socket there are some out there that have a rubber inside and that will hold the plug in place when you remove it; when you put it back I did not use the rubber with fear of the rubber satying stuck on the tip of the plug and instead placed a long piece of folded aluminum foil all along the inside of the plug socket to keep the plug from falling off during installation, once you have screwed the plug a bit pull out remove the piece of aluminum and torque the plug normally. Hope this helps


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