Spark plug crevice full o' dirt

[m0nkeyprince]

i was regapping and adding some anti seize to my iridium spark plugs today, the gaps were fine, but omg, its so filthy. The threads on the left bank were contaminated with oil, the threads of the park plugs on the right bank are filled with small rocks, no joke. I cleaned them with a long sitck with Q-tips taped to the end plus some brake cleaner, but it cant reach the plugs on the right bank. Is it okay if i just clean the spark plug and reinstall? with a flashlight, i can actually see the rocks and oil.

PS, a small peice of a redwood pineneedles fell into th cylinder, thats okay right? the combustion will jsut burn it out?

[AZhitman]

How the hell do small rocks get anywhere near your spark plug holes?

Oil on the threads is no big deal (replace your valve cover gasket)... but if you reinstall a plug back into contaminated threads, you could wreck the head. Clean the threads.

[m0nkeyprince]

yeah, exactly my thought too, i cleaned the sparkplug threads and the block heads (well, at least tried) very thoroughly before putting them back in but for the plugs under the intake manifold, it was way too deep, so im trying to think of a different idea

[Chuck Tribolet]

I've said this here before: Before you pull the plug, blow the hole out with compressed air. This is particularly important on
the SOHC engines where the plug is down in a hole and there's nothing to keep any bit of grit flying around under the hood from
falling down into the hole and staying there. Now, m0nkey, since you didn't do that you need to get as much of the grit out of there
as possible. I'd adapt my shop vac down to some 1/4 or 3/8" copper tubing and suck it out. Work your way down slowly and go down
to the top of the piston.

When I was a kid, the hobby shop had some thin-wall copper tubing, lot's thinner-wall than copper flex pipe from OSH. I'd try to
find that.

Now, for discussion: When you do fire it up, let it idle? Or rev it a lot and blow the crud through? My gut feel is the latter.


Chuck

[m0nkeyprince]

I wish i could do that, i dont have an air compressor nor a shop vac i tried brake cleaner to no effect, so i had to manually use qtips ductaped to a long chopstick to clean it out, works okay except the sparkplugs on the right bank are way too deep. ill take a picture when im back from morgan hill, its filthy.

[AZhitman]

A Shop-Vac is cheaper than a new motor.

Borrow one if you must.

[m0nkeyprince]

true, i just ordered a new shop vac, should be awfulyl useful, specially cleaning and drying my carpets after i jsut wash them

[Chuck Tribolet]

For the first couple of years I owned a house, my only vacuum was a Sears shop vac. Then my GF moved in and brought her Hoovers. The
shop vac is still going in the garage at the weekend house, and the GF's vac died a few years ago.

I think to get the grit out before you pull the plugs, you need compressed gas. A can of Dust-Off (see your local serious camera store)
should do just fine. However, compressors are good. NOTHING beats compressed air for getting beach sand out of the carpets. And you
can run cool stuff line air tools, and be a hero to the local kid with a flat on his bike tire.


Chuck