AH Crap!

Ok, help me out her OH IDI gods! I had my 91/84 up and running for about three days when I discovered half the glow plugs went out. no big, I ran to town and got some delcos and a box ofbeer, and went to change tem out. all but one is stuck so damned tight they wont een budge with a pair of vise grips and one even broke the entire electrode of and it currently resides at the bottom of the hole. I have pretty muc resigned myself to the fact that my top end has to come off and was wondering if both heads and the intake can be pulled as a unit. crazy idea little brother came up with to save me sixty bucks and get the Beast back before flood/snow season. basically, lift the heads and intake off the motor bolted together using the picking eyes on the corners of the intake, carry the whole mess to the work bech with the loader tractor, turn it over, get the bad plugs and plug pieces out, clean everything, and put it back together, with ne head gaskets of course. usually I would slap him and ask what he's smoking, but with my time frame closing and cash getting tight, I'm interested in weather or not this would work since my heads and everything else is new I just have to replace crap glow plugs.

NEGATIVE GHOST Rider....

Those heads life off straight up over dowels thus you are pulling outwards from the centre of the engine. This means you would be like trying to tear the intake in half ...

Just bite the bullet and get the heads and intake off, OH BTW take those Craptastic glow plugs you bought back. and get some FROM FORD or IH most here concurr that that only GP worthy of the engines is the BERU ZD9 for 7.3 or IIRC ZD1 for 6.9 but not sure on 6.9 but BERU is only way to go.

The AC Delco, Champion, Bosch, Autolite, have been known to swell and break off, just as you are experiencing now....and some in a very short time...a few months...do you want to do this twice?

JM2CW

IIRC ZD1 for 6.9 but not sure on 6.9 but BERU is only way to go.

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That's right riotwarrior, looks like he has a 6.9.
It takes a 10mm or a 3/8" six point socket on GP's, don't use a 12 point socket.

Another couple of boxes of beer and a couple days work should get it up and running again.

When a bolt or anything threaded in, won't back out, always try tightening it, if it moves a few thousandth, that breaks the seal.

When you install the new GP's, use some Anti-Seize on the threads. If you didn't on the other ones, I'd pull them and do that.

confirmed, bad idea. as far as the glow plugs go, there just a for now fix. getting motor crafts asap hard to find good stuff here, the parts stores only stock junk for idis and the dlerships just want to sell you a new tru. Thanks for the tip.

Sometimes you can fish them iut through the injector hole

Really no chance of removing the heads and intake as one piece but nice thought too. As for the type of plugs you purchased please return them and get the motorcraft beru ZD9 plugs. Otherwise you will have this problem again.

The 6.9 is ZD-1 for plugs.

I think I would do ZD-9 with a pushbutton setup.
If you have orielly, they can get them.
You're gonna pay twice for using those.

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GP removal is with a 6 point 3/8 inch deep socket. Not vice grips. You also don't have to torque them to 5 million ft/lbs, about 20 will do the trick. Or snug, if you don't use a torque wrench. And use some thread lube (copper or lead) to make it easier to get them out again.

There are hollow dowels locating the heads (usually, sometimes they get removed and not replaced), but I would not make that bet. You are on the hook for head and intake gaskets, so make the best of it instead of the worst. Yeah, BERU GPs are known and approved by OB, but I have faith in and have successfully used Bosch for 5 years without a failure. They are easy to find and not too costly.

You can do the job in the truck with a little preparation to save time, but have a cherry picker available to lift those mothers out and save your back.

It is a long shot, but it is also a possibility. If you remove the injector from that cylinder, and position the piston at TDC, you can put a vacuum cleaner on the injector hole, and then knock the tip out of the glow plug hole into the pre-cup. Put a piece of pantyhose over the vacuum, so you can see when you have captured the broken tip. If it doesn't go in when you first knock it out, then blow compressed air into the glow plug hole to swirl the tip around and try to get it to go out the injector hole. The piston to head/precup tolerance is so tight, that if you get TDC accurately, the tip cannot fall out of the pre-cup into the cylinder

Anybody tried the Loctite Freeze and Release on stubborn glow plugs yet? I've had great luck with it on other stuck fasteners, I'd give it a try.

lotza,

I had not heard of that stuff. I may have to get me a can. I need to replace the rear wheel cylinders on my Jetta. Which is a 91, with 300,000 Rust Belt miles on it. On the fronts, I did the heat, cool with PB Blaster, cycle a few times, which worked great. But the fact this does it without heat, especially in the tight quarters of a wheel well, it would be really nice. Thanks for the info!!!!!

Funny story Scott: back in the late 80s, I worked in electronics, and they used to sell "electronic component cooler", otherwise known as freeze spray. It was intended to be used to find cold solder joints, or to induce intermittent integrated circuit or transistor issues. We used to sometimes see if we could freeze a fly and then make it come back to life , but one of the best out of the box uses was my buddy froze a wart off of his elbow! "Isn't that what they do at the dermatologist" he proclaimed. Funny how not having health insurance made you "creative" back in the day

I had worked in a machine shop and had used dry ice to shrink bushings (ever put a wrist pin in the freezer next to your holiday turkey before pressing it into your piston?) and we started using this stuff to try to loosen rusty Akron Ohio fasteners. Fast forward 30 years: Loctite updates this stuff by adding some special super penetrating oil and now you have something that should act like a "cold torch". It really does work very well, and yes, your seals, paint, and other "flame unfriendly" stuff will remain unharmed

If you can find some liquid nitrogen try that to shrink something for a press fit. But be careful and use a face shield when using it. I used plenty of it when working in the machine shop. Any bearing or part you drop in a pot of it will act like its boiling. When the piece stops boiling its the temp of the nitrogen at around negative 300 degrees. It will burn like a hot part burns your skin too.

icanfixall said:

If you can find some liquid nitrogen try that to shrink something for a press fit. But be careful and use a face shield when using it. I used plenty of it when working in the machine shop. Any bearing or part you drop in a pot of it will act like its boiling. When the piece stops boiling its the temp of the nitrogen at around negative 300 degrees. It will burn like a hot part burns your skin too.

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that showed what this stuff would do,,when we were in hs...a rubber hose,,dipped in it, then dropped on the floor,,would explode almost to dust!!!