stuck spark plug

[Bingo Jed]

Just brought home a 99 altima parts car and figured I'd run a compression test before pulling the engine. I warmed up the engine, unplugged the disty stuff and pulled the fuse for the fuel pump, and then went for the plugs. I noticed that the plugs for cylinders 1, 2, and 3 were torqued down pretty tight, which I thought was kind of strange. My big problem now though is I can't seem to get the socket on the plug for the 4th cylinder. It's difficult to get a good view of things since the plug is so far down into the head. At first I thought the nut section of the plug was somehow stripped off. I put a plug back in cylinder #3 and inserted the socket and extension onto it and measured the depth. I then did the same thing for the 4th cylinder and it doesn't seem to go down as far, meaning the socket isn't going over the nut section. I'm using a 5/8" socket plug, which worked for the others. A 7/8" socket won't fit into the opening.

Anybody have any idea's on how to get this plug out? I'm anticipating this to be a difficult one to budge, so I've already sprayed it with pb blaster. When looking into the opening, I can't make out any area's that look like something a socket would go over. The rest of the top part of the plug is there though and the engine starts and runs ok.

idk. Help!?

[Bingo Jed]

Crisis averted. apparently whoever put these spark plugs in lost their rubber bushing piece from their socket.

And I just did a compression a test and got 180, 182, 178, and 175.

Not too bad considering this thing has 162k on it!

[Rev_D21]

That was going to be my answer..did someone leave a rubber in the tube?