I messed up real bad, someone help

engine22 · Full Member Joined: Apr 10, 2008 Posts: 104

I went to screw my sparkplug in tonight and dropped it.. It was dark and I didnt see that it put a gash in the grooves and I went to screw it in.. I freaking stripped the hell out of the plug grooves on the engine about 1/3 of their length..... I cant screw a plug in now without it feeling like I am completely stripping off all the grooves... not too mention the risk of these metal shavings getting into my engine... What, if anything can I do here? Did I just ruin a perfectly good engine out of sheer stupidity and carelessness?

Somebody help me

justin · Full Member Joined: Dec 18, 2007 Posts: 41

yes you did
no im just kidding. there are thread chasers for this at auto stores and the worst thing is a spark plug repair kit. check out helicoil brand stuff pricey but cheaper than a new enging.

engine22 · Full Member Joined: Apr 10, 2008 Posts: 104

Thats a relief.. How do these things work? I imagine you only get one shot at it..

justin · Full Member Joined: Dec 18, 2007 Posts: 41

the helicoilshave an odd size tap that comes with the kit. then the spring part threads into the newly tapped hole. which brings it back to original thread size. you need to coat the tap with a heavy greas to catch the shavings. go in then out .clean it off and do it again till your all the way down. you might just try to rethread it with the standard size tap cause it might not be to messed up. if that doesent work youll have to use the helicoil. if your reluctant to do it youself a motoshop might do it for you. and there are several brands of this helicoil thing and the prices vary quit a bit. i bought a lil kit for a stud to one of the tappet covers and i think it was 35 bucks. i had to red loctite the coil and stud in

jimmythetrucker · Full Member Joined: Mar 12, 2008 Posts: 1283

Try a thread chaser first. Don't do the helicoil if the thread chaser will fix it.

When you thread the new plug in, be careful when you tighten it. Just twist it down far enough to mash the copper crush ring. That's as tight as it needs to be anway. Twist it down further, even on a brand new machine, you risk stripping threads out of the hole. Always remember: the head is aluminum (soft) but the plug is steel (hard). You can f**k one up real easy if you try to be a muscleman.

Jake68 · 650Rider Supporter Joined: Mar 23, 2007 Posts: 841

A lot of people will purposely worry the hell out of you about getting metal in this part of the engine...but there is no getting it down below in the bearings unless you pistons fit like paint in a paint pot.

This happened to me once and I chased the thread good..It was weaker because of it...but it worked..my recommendation is to trailer the bike to an engineer and get him to do it..

Then use a high energy LED on the end of a bit of wire to get some light in there..then get a role of gaffer tape and some clear fuel pipe that JUST fits through the plug whole..tape the pipe into the end of a vacuum pipe nozzle and hoover all the ally out...

Just try not to miss any..although mostly small bits get blown straight out..I wouldnt like to have anything sizeable in there...

xsjohn

Shop vac out the exhaust and intake ports might do it while blowing air in the plug hole....dicking with needles all those years I must have have had the plugs out 50 a bunch thousand times......started wire wheeling the new plug threads out of paranoia............????

And just for BS ....now with 2 head gaskets I can run the next hotter plug and it's right......cleans off in a quarter mile and never gets white....got it back to 60MPG and a bunch of vibes and heat gone too....front wheel doesn't even move at idol......can't help dicking with things just to see what happens....sometimes it's good and sometimes not.....still pulls my scrawny ass with 18/29 like a bat out of hell too.....will never go back...runs too much like my Buick now....(sorry for the rant)

xsjohn

jimmythetrucker · Full Member Joined: Mar 12, 2008 Posts: 1283

OK -- I'll start the riot.

I wouldn't even worry about the metal filings that fell in from using a thread chaser. The head is aluminum, the filings are therefore very small and very soft, and they will blow out the exhaust when you start the machine without hurting anything inside. You're at much greater risk from a few particles of sand than from those few wimpy flakes of aluminum.

When I worked on Volkswagens, the brass nozzle of the accelerator pump was always falling out of the carb and straight down the intake manifold. For some reason, it usually ended up in the No. 2 cylinder, where it rattled and banged and kicked up such a fuss that novice technicians always thought that the head had come loose or the engine had sucked a valve or something. The easiest fix was to start the engine and drive the car until the rattling and banging stopped -- as it always did. The moving parts soon chewed up that stupid brass nozzle, which is fifty or a hundred times larger than those aluminum shavings you guys are worried about.

F**k them filings, I say. Run the thing and blow 'em out.

xsjohn

Not a riot from me.....that's the way I would do it......run it........xsjohn

jayel

just turn it over until the exhaust valve is open and blow air thru the plug hole any chips will go out the exhaust

metalredneck · Full Member Joined: Aug 04, 2008 Posts: 308

Fill the flutes of the reamer with grease to catch the bits, blow out the rest, and have a nice day. Very Happy

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