Is this real bad or what?

ATPJOE

ATPJOE

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I had a code for cylinder 8, went to replace coil, and of course a little bit of oil comes out with it. Okay, doesn't surprise me this is common with these cars and I need new gaskets. So I'm like well I should probably check my spark plug out. I soak up the little oil left in there and put my spark plug socket in there and it just spins and spins never grabbing the plug. I'm concerned.

I take a picture of the inside of the plug well, and I found the plug...buried in this concrete looking sandy stuff. Now I feel like I just bought a car that needs a new head maybe? I have the plug well full of PB blaster right now hoping that breaks up this crud. Heres a picture of the well. Please tell me this is fixable without a new head or something....

430036_10150792530714408_657804407_12607550_1045629985_n.jpg


I just bought this car 88k miles for 2800 with some problems, all I thought were fairly minor. It had codes for the misfire, and an EVAP "Large" Leak. Also has bad outer tie rod ends and a bad bearing in the rear. If I need a new head im starting to feel like maybe thats not a great deal. :confused:
 
Makes you wonder what else you're going to find.
You'll have to find some way to break that stuff loose just to get to valve cover off to look at it. It may be fixable without replacing the head.
 
Have you ever seen this happen before? I'm no mechanic but have done all my own work on my past rides and never came across a spark plug that was like this... THAT is what worries me. I couldnt find anything similar on the internet.
 
What year LS?

Info and pics would help alot. If the car is a gen II in decent condition you could drop a new engine and come out ahead.
 
I do not have the resources to simply do that. It's a 2000 3.9 Sport. This is the best possible picture I could get of the plug well. It's like a cement I don't understand how this happens. I mean I drove it with the misfire a few times and I could get used to it but thats clearly not good for the car. I want all 8 cylinders working haha. If I can't get the plug out and replaced buying the new coil was a waste of time and money.
 
2000 LS8. I am not replacing the entire engine, I just bought the car I can barely afford anything.
 
Holy-moley that's unusual. I wonder if this could be some sort of stop-leak crap they put in there?

Any of the other plug wells have this going on?

Edit:

Looked up some pics of stop leak for head gaskets and whatnot. Here's what it looks like.

cyl1.jpg
 
No only this one. I wondered if maybe it was some weird filler or something but who the hell would do that!?? Some Jeep buddies are saying to put diesel or kerosene in there and let it sit and swear it'll break it up. PB blaster, so far, isn't doing too much from what I can tell. I still cannot get a socket on the plug -_____-
 
Might be able to get a long pick or skinny chisel and see if that will loosen it up enough or break it so you can fish it out. Just try not to make love to the hammer when you are banging on it. Otherwise you will need a new head.
 
If you just bought the car you need to be taking it back (unless it was a private sale)... There are no fluids (that i can think of) that solidify when mixed...IMO, the plug blew out a while ago, and someone put it back in and sealed it in there so it wouldn't move again... was the boot modified, If boot wasnt stuck in that stuff then it was def. done on purpose.. . I can imagine your getting out of this without a new head... YOUVE purchased a lemon my friend... You have laws to help but thats a very tough battle...

Try to get that stuff out and see... but my guess is the plug wont stay in by itself...
 
Makes me wish I would have kept the heads off of my engine. They were in very good shape and could have helped for a very good price. Kinda kicking myself hard right now for not keeping them just because.
 
i doubt it... wouldn't be worth it even if it was...

What did you pay for the car, from whom, etc....
 
It was a private sale. 2,800. Are you guys sure that is what that stuff is? Like have you seen this done before? I'd hate to be demoralized about needing a new head if I don't need to be. I have had it soaking in PB blaster all night, so we'll see if its softened up or anything. If not I'm willing to bet you guys are right. A $48 coil may have just quickly turned into over a $1000 in nonsense probably.


Also the boot was not stuck in there. Came right out. It had a little of the same colored stuff on the sides of the boot. It is like a iron oxide colored dust. My uneducated theory was that the oil was electrically charged and may have caused some sort of byproduct in the form of a corroded dust or something. But the stuff at the bottom was so odd that I was clinging to pipe dreams.

If that plug still creates a spark, which I think it might (it wasn't a constant misfire), I'm going to put the new coil on and if it smooths out the idle and the misfire then great I'll roll with it for a while until A. I can afford to beef up the motor for the long haul. B. Motor blows up, then proceed to off myself.
 
I cant be sure of anything off on pic... I'm saying you might find when you get that stuff out (if you can get it out) a blown plug. I guessing if its still rock hard... then it was done on purpose... was it running rough when you bought it?
 
I had a spark plug blow out on me. Cost me around $200 to have my trusted mechanic perform the repair at the site of the blowout. Drilled out the stripped threads, put a steel insert in. If this was someone else's stupid fix for the same issue, that REALLY sucks for you. AND, it sucks they didn't tell you about it.
 
G-RELL said:
I cant be sure of anything off on pic... I'm saying you might find when you get that stuff out (if you can get it out) a blown plug. I guessing if its still rock hard... then it was done on purpose... was it running rough when you bought it?
Click to expand...

Well I just checked on it, I don't have anything to scrape it out effectively but I've stuck a few different things in there to see if I could scratch some off or something and I just cant tell. I think it is in there for good. It ran fine the first time I test drove it, had a slight miss on idle. Second time the idle was a little more rough but motor ran fine while it was moving so I figured it was a bad coil. Like I said it didn't misfire 100% of the time and there WAS oil in the well so I wouldn't be surprised if the plug is fine and the coil just pooped out. But I need to blow out the remnants of PB blaster and get it all back together and find out about that for sure. I would be willing to do a new head at some point theres just NO way I can afford to anytime soon. So like I said this thing needs to keep truckin at the cost of the 02 and Cat or the whole motor :shifty:

pektel said:
I had a spark plug blow out on me. Cost me around $200 to have my trusted mechanic perform the repair at the site of the blowout. Drilled out the stripped threads, put a steel insert in. If this was someone else's stupid fix for the same issue, that REALLY sucks for you. AND, it sucks they didn't tell you about it.
Click to expand...

The owner I got the car from recently, whom of which is a female, never had any repairs done to the motor. She owned it since 2010, prior to her a "corporate fleet" owned it. So maybe this company who had it first liked to cut corners...IDK. I just cant understand someones mindset when deciding to permanently attach a plug to the motor haha like were they drunk?
 
A. you cant trust what anyone says on the history of a used car, without proof.

B. I know a guy who used shears to open his trunk... so mindset... they're out there.

C. corp fleets will do anything to keep them running... they cut there loses when they purchase and wholesale the cars after that...

you can try drilling it out, but fixing this without pulling the head sounds unlikely..
 
ATPJOE said:
... My uneducated theory was that the oil was electrically charged and may have caused some sort of byproduct in the form of a corroded dust or something. But the stuff at the bottom was so odd that I was clinging to pipe dreams...
Click to expand...

I just can't see anyway that could be. I think someone put some kind of epoxy in there to hold in a striped plug.

If your worst problem in life works out to be that you were cheated out of $2800 on a car, you will have done well. Don't make any plans to check out yet. It gets more interesting as you go along.
 
+1
you should be able to either find a new head or repair this one... you'll be alright. its still running.
 
Thanks guys. I know not to trust what they say but I personally know the former owner very well. She has already told me plenty of things most people wouldn't have bothered so I trust her. I do believe the company before she owned it would deff pull some cheap crap. I still think with the problems the car has, for 2,800 and 88k miles it's a good investment. It rides good WITH all the problems. Work is just super slow right now and I can't feed the beast until work picks up. Luckily I have my 100MPG Honda Ruckus until then haha.

I got some air in the well, and some Q-tips..got as much of the PB blaster out as I could and this is what it looks like. (dont mind the messy poo everywhere.)

2hgutm1.jpg


The hex part looks like its peeking through finally. But at this point I know I cannot afford to (if the plug is stripped) repair the threads in the head so I'm going to leave it be for now. Hopefully if that is an epoxy I didn't totally soften it all up and compromise it so the plug will rocket out. If this is an epoxy, I've never seen it before. It's a sandy texture and turns to a sandy mud when saturated with PB blaster.


EDIT: Picture is upside down by the way.
 
well be careful running it now you've loosened up that stuff... I hope the best, but for others reading this i disagree with you "investment" statement

nothing that depreciates in value is a good investment...

as for a good purchase... I still disagree... You have to factor in the ability to afford repairs when purchasing a used car... spending every dime you had on this car puts you in a tough spot when this (or the COPs, or timing chains, or etc...) goes out. Im in no way trying to bust your balls.. Just FYI to anyone else shopping around. I hate to see guys in this situation (as i did when i did it to myself)

anyways....

let us know how it goes
 
I had this problem when I was tearing down an old MKIII 7mgte motor. They had filled one of the plug holes with resin. Mind you the shop that was going to do the cleaning and P&P said they wouldn't take it until the stuff was removed. So did some experimenting and this is what I came up with. Now it totally depends on what type of resin it actually is. Polyester resins can sometimes be dissolved by soaking in a bath of 90-100% isopropyl alcohol. For epoxy resins, use a bath of equal parts of toluene, acetone, and methyl ethyl ketone. This mixture should also work on vinyl ester resins, although i haven't tried it. Some cautions though- the above solvents are very aggressive to most types of plastic, and will also dissolve some electronic components that are not ceramic coated.These solvents have a high evaporative rate, make sure your bath does not dry out or you will have a big sticky mess.
 
G-RELL said:
well be careful running it now you've loosened up that stuff... I hope the best, but for others reading this i disagree with you "investment" statement

nothing that depreciates in value is a good investment...

as for a good purchase... I still disagree... You have to factor in the ability to afford repairs when purchasing a used car... spending every dime you had on this car puts you in a tough spot when this (or the COPs, or timing chains, or etc...) goes out. Im in no way trying to bust your balls.. Just FYI to anyone else shopping around. I hate to see guys in this situation (as i did when i did it to myself)

anyways....

let us know how it goes
Click to expand...

I agree with what you are saying. To me it's a good investment due to the fact I love these cars, and I feel like once it's in normal shape I'm going to love it even more than I do now while its broken. What's killing me is that I ha the choice between this one and a LS6 same year, but 134k miles. The LS6 ran beautifully, was kept up with, had records, and was a couple hundred less. I wanted the 3.9 and Black rather than silver. The mileage also was a big diff. It certainly is going to be a money pit for a little while but someday I think I'll be glad I did it.

centason said:
I had this problem when I was tearing down an old MKIII 7mgte motor. They had filled one of the plug holes with resin. Mind you the shop that was going to do the cleaning and P&P said they wouldn't take it until the stuff was removed. So did some experimenting and this is what I came up with. Now it totally depends on what type of resin it actually is. Polyester resins can sometimes be dissolved by soaking in a bath of 90-100% isopropyl alcohol. For epoxy resins, use a bath of equal parts of toluene, acetone, and methyl ethyl ketone. This mixture should also work on vinyl ester resins, although i haven't tried it. Some cautions though- the above solvents are very aggressive to most types of plastic, and will also dissolve some electronic components that are not ceramic coated.These solvents have a high evaporative rate, make sure your bath does not dry out or you will have a big sticky mess.
Click to expand...

Damn, what did the resin look like? Similar to what my first picture looks like? If that's what's in there I clearly compromised it's strength with the PB blaster. If the plug blows out what will it take with it besides the coil? How the hell did this method come to fruition! :confused:


Unrelated: She is a beaut. Needs a serious wash though.
394112_305438382839321_100001194868534_734031_64028478_n.jpg
 
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