OT glow plugs

Steven-Id · Nov 27, 2010

Have any of you had this happen? I have a 1984 Dodge D50 with the Mitsubishi turbo diesel and when I went to change one of the glow plugs I unscrewed the casing off and left the bottom piece stuck in the head. There is a stem down in there but I cant get enough of a grip on it with needle nose pliers to pull it out. I would like to not have to pull the head but I don"t know what else to do. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance Steven

JDemaris · Nov 27, 2010

Good luck. There have been many engines ruined by pieces of broken, or exploded glow plugs getting stuck in the piston tops. I've got one Isuzu and one GM 6.2 that both have some stuck broken glow-plugs in them. The Isuzu four starts well enough with three plugs, and the GM starts good enough with 6 out of 8. I'm leaving well-enough alone.

I know a guy that had a glow-plug tip break off in his 2.3 turbo Mitsubishi (Mazda-Perkins clone I think). Someone told him to crank the engine over and compression would blow the piece out. Nope. Got stuck in a piston and he had to pull the head off.

Best thing to do is curse a lot, and blame the guy that put them in without NeverSeize.

There is a special tool for getting out broken plugs, but it only works when some is still sticking out of the head.

ASEguy · Nov 27, 2010

Chrysler makes a heat riser solvent spray that works well on stuck plugs when you spray it into the manifold while the engine is running. Shut the vehicle off and sometimes the stuck plug comes out because it soaks the other side of the plug. I realize it's too late for him now, but this may work in the future. Gerard

rrlund · Nov 27, 2010

I changed the ones in my 6.9 Ford a few months ago and the whole tip was BURNED off of one. I have no idea where any of it went. That's some pretty darned hard stuff and you wouldn't think it would totally burn up,but it was gone. There was one time last winter,I was hauling cattle and when I pulled up to a stop light about 35 miles from home,it was missing so bad the whole truck was shaking. It missed for probably 25 miles or more then smoothed out. When I found that tip burned off,it made me wonder if part of it was stuck in an exhaust valve back then or something.
Wherever it went,darned if I can find where it's hurt anything.

twopop · Nov 27, 2010

can you pull the injector and put comptessed air in thru the hole it may push it out,just remember it could become a missle

JDseller · Nov 27, 2010

I had Chev 6.2 diesel for years. When they went bad they would mushroom the end making them hard to get out. If your engine has a precombustion chamber ( I think it does) remove the injector. You then can make a little pry bar to push on the bottom of the glow plug. About half of the time you can get them to come out that way. If that does not work. Take a rag and plug the port that goes from the chamber into the cylinder. Then drive the broken glow plug piece into the precombustion chamber. Then you just break it into small enough pieces to take out through the injector hole.
I had to do that on my first go round on the 6.2 Chev. after I had already pulled the cylinder head. You still could not get to the bottom of the glow plug. So I had to work it out the injector hole. So after that I just did that while the head was still on the engine.

OT glow plugs

Steven-Id

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JDemaris

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ASEguy

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rrlund

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twopop

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JDseller

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