My Project Thread. 88 350, my first idi.

I actually wasn't even thinking when posted earlier. The compression shouldn't even make it up to that ez out unless it was long enough to blow the tip off when it was hammer in.

If it were me since that is a square extractor I would try to tack some kind of a rod to it without welding it to what is left of the plug, use small slide hammer or something similar to jar it straight up. Shouldn't take much force to get it back out.

If you can get it out then look though the hole and find out if the tip is still intact, if it is I would move on to other things. Keep spraying it with a good penetrating oil while you work on the other things. Once you have it to a point where you can bring it up to temp and let it completely cool a few times to help work the penetrant down around the threads, find the largest spiral extractor that will fit and carefully try extracting it again.

A small welding tip on an oxy acetelyne torch is a good way to carefully apply heat to something like that, it works for me all the time.

bumblebeer said:

I guess I could pull the injector and fish around with a magnet?

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Having been through this process in my ‘85 (incredibly lucky it was cyl #2), whatever ideas you have about fishing things out through the injector will be an exercise in frustration along the lines of hopes and prayers. You can pressurize the cyl with air through the injector - but thats about it. Getting a swollen plug end to line up to come out the injector port… Not.

I bought a scope for this purpose and was only successful in establishing that the bowl of the cup did not contain my 1/4 inch long tip (too big to leave it in there, too small to get trapped in the cup). Two problems to overcome… 1) - the injector hole is 3mm or 4mm in size - much smaller than you might expect, therefore requires a very special camera cable… Assume the camera end cannot bend like an acrobat. 2) the GP tips are only slightly magnetic.

I superglue’d a 3mm neodymium magnet to the end of a hanger, then a stack of them - which in testing could barely pickup a tip (breaking the tip off of a counterfeit plug for testing is one of the few good uses for !@#$%*)&! Crappy GPs) - the GP alloy is barely magnetic. On several occasions I spent several hours hunched over the engine bay fishing unsuccessfully, the lack of a second view for the camera is… debilitating.

Which is a long winded way of saying: If you suspect the end of the GP dropped into the cup, then you don’t have much choice but to pull the valve cover, compress the exhaust valve - and blow compressed air until it comes out - assuming there is enough room. I know others in this forum have expressed luck in fishing tips out, blowing broken tips out, or simply passing them through a running engine - and I have to believe in their incredible luck and guts. I’m not that lucky.

Having put several months of weekends into schemes to get the tip out, I concluded if it ever happened again, I would take my truck directly to the shop and part with good money to have it done. If you have the tools to compress the valve - then I’d try it - I don’t. I keep my broken tip in a small bowl on my desk as a reminder of the many things not to do…

Good luck.

By looking at the attached picture and the fact that the other 7 came out I am thinking that the cowl seal let water pool around that one and seized the threads. Given that he says the element came out with the top part, hopefully the extractor wasn't long enough to break the tip off. So there could still be hope of getting what's left out in one piece, as long as the broken extractor can be removed.

I would get some heat cycles in that before I messed with it anymore. It will come out when it is ready dont force it. The plugs dont twist off that easily, and neither do easy outs.
My recomendation would be heat with torch, squirt some oil on it let cool completely, and repeat several times, and on the last time after heating, weld something (a 3/8 bolt ground to a point would be my tool) and then squirt some more atf (or 2 stroke) oil on it. I would wait until it cooled to start cranking on it GENTLY.

Try to leave the area around the plug as dirty as possible to prevent the weld from sticking there at all.

Just read that the element came out with the top part. If that ez out was tapped in there pretty good, I would try to get it out before doing anything else. I wish they didnt sell ez outs, I have only seen them used with succes a couple times, and created more headaches than I can remember.

Black dawg said:

If that ez out was tapped in there pretty good, I would try to get it out before doing anything else.

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This is why I recommend yesterday trying to weld a small rod to it so it can be pulled out with a slide hammer or possibly vise grips and a hammer. Since they are tapered and it is a square one hopefully it won't take much to get it out.

I agree that I haven't had a whole lot of success with extractors. If you are going to use one I would definitely spend the extra money and get good quality, this is now the type of tool you want to buy from harbor freight unless you like the extra difficulty.

EZs outs are incredible tools with immense power, but with great power comes great responsibility. You have to buy high quality and they rarely work on very small fasteners, an EZ out will almost never work without heat and you don’t push on the really very much at all, if you have to push on the EZ out you havnt used enough heat and oil or it’s just not going to work.

My perspective is that of a professional full time machinist fabricator specializing is rusted broken farm things.

Just a quick update.

I tried yesterday to build up a weld on the EZ out so I could grab it with some vice grips and use a slide hammer as recommend. But I can't get the weld to strick. It just keeps breaking off. Reckon that's because I'm using a ****** cheap HF 125 flux core wire welder. I was hesitant to use a stick welder since that seemed really aggressive. What would be y'all's recommendation for what rod to use with the stick welder? I'm assuming I would want to intentionally stick the rod to give the pliers something to grab hold of?

Yea a gassless Flux core makes a decent boat anchor, definitely not much good for welding anything that needs to hold. I would use the smallest rod you have, 3/32" would probably be a reasonable option. I would think a 6010, 6011, 7018 would all work.

Would definitely make sure you get as much of the porosity from the Flux core as possible removed so the stick has a better chance of holding.

I'm thinking the ez out is so hard that it will break right beside the weld.

That is a good possibility. I wonder if he could use a mini torch or a welding tip and and preheat the ez before trying to weld to it. That should remove some of the temper and if welded while still as hot as possible should give the rod a better chance of holding.

Rdnck84_03 said:

Yea a gassless Flux core makes a decent boat anchor, definitely not much good for welding anything that needs to hold. I would use the smallest rod you have, 3/32" would probably be a reasonable option. I would think a 6010, 6011, 7018 would all work.

Would definitely make sure you get as much of the porosity from the Flux core as possible removed so the stick has a better chance of holding.

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Although this is my first time owning and operating a gassless flux core wire welder I'd have to disagree with this....

It's not heavy enough to make a decent anchor

On a serious note. I got the glow plug out. But also seriously ruined the threads in the head. Is there a premade sleeve kit for this situation? Or do I need to get a machine shop to custom make one?

Or, I guess I could tap the block and put in an iron plug cap and run it on 7 glow plugs. Thoughts?

bumblebeer said:

this is my first time owning and operating a gassless flux core wire welder I'd have to disagree with this....

It's not heavy enough to make a decent anchor

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Guess we know how HF sells them so cheap, must be all aluminum and plastic

Is there enough threads left that you can clean them up? I don't know the thread pitch, but maybe you can use a thread restorer and still have it hold a glow plug into place.

Could a helicoil be an option? If they are available in that thread size if the threads in the head are too far gone. May not even be an option, just a thought.

James