BoorishId

Ok so first of all lemme start with im poor i have no money im gonna have to borrow money for new spark plug wires so id like to avoid buying specialty tools and that kind of stuff.

Anyways im driving home last night and my car overheats, let it cool off then add water to rad drove home about 10 miles tempature wise everything is fine. I need to figure out why i leaked coolant but this isnt my main concern right now.

The car misfires on cyl 2 and 4 and also posts a code for random misfires... im thinking **** i dont know whats wrong.... So i go to check the plugs, Well my damn spark plug boots melted inside the chamber. So im hoping i just messed my wires up. Any other ideas as to why it would miss after an overheat i think i can rule out a warped head becuase the car didnt overheat again. I will run a compression check if need be when i can get the wires out.

So what on cyl 4 i have basically got as much of the boot out as i could but there is still a ring around the bottom of the chamber wich feels like hard plastic melted in there and its covering up the plug from getting a socket on to it.

Here are my ideas hamer and a screw driver and chisel the rubber/plastic crap out. Use a butane tourch to remelt it anad pull out with needle nose. How hard would it be to get the whole chamber out would i have to remove the head? I really need to get this fixed tommrow my job is driving....

holmesnmanny

I know you said you don't have a lot of money but Kragen sells spark plug boot remover tools. They aren't that much, maybe 15 or so. Obviously you're gonna need to just take off the valve cover to get more room.

Since it's safe to say your wires are bad, hopefully that's your problem there.

BoorishId

a boot remover isnt gonna help this the boots are melted to the spark plug and chamber, ive taken cyl 4 out and the metal came completely out but part of the boot is still in there and theres no room to put a boot remover tool around it. basically its a ring of melted rubber that is hard now and it fiils the whole gap between the plug and chamber and the rubber is a little higher in the chamber than hex ring on the plug preventing me from using a socket on the plug.

holmesnmanny

I would prolly try using a big pair of long extended needle nose.

BadgerX

or you could yank the valve cover off and maybe the rocker assembly, it would get you a bit closer to the prob

Vapor

Hi BorishId! I hope you finally got the problem with that spark plug boot squared away. But in case you haven't, I have a suggestion for you.

Just today (and a couple times previously) I had the exact same problem. The engine overheated and melted the 2nd cylinder's spark plug boot inside the tube. When I tried to remove it, the insulator on the end of the boot came off. I could have fished it out with a pair of long needle nose pliers, but that elevates the risk that the insulator would disintegrate and there would be pieces to remove that could otherwise fall into bore for the spark plug.

What I ended up doing was slathering a copious amount of super glue onto the end of the boot that separated from the insulator. I pushed it back into the tube, making sured that the lip on the boot was completely inserted into the insulator. I gave the glue about 20 minutes to cure.

When I was ready to remove the boot, instead of yanking it out of the tube, I moved it back and forth until I could hear a snapping or clicking sound. I then eased the boot out of the tube and the insulator came with it.

Hope this helps!

gesford

The torch idea is a good idea if the super glue don't work. But I would take the valve cover off first

Apostle

I am new to working on honda's I am working on 95 accord and had the same problem, took over an hour to chisel out pieces' compressed air helped to blow out debris.

janos

I know this is a old thread, but found it and thought I would add something for those who find it as useful as I did. After you remove as much of the old boot as you can, take a shop vac and take a straw (I used a boba tea straw, azn drink... very wide straw), put it in the center of the hose and put tape around it, this way you insert the long straw into the chamber and suck out whatever pieces of debris is inside so they will not fall into your engine.

Troy6612

Hello. I believe I have a suggestion that may work for u because it worked for me. Go to Home Depot get a 1/8 inch drill bit at least 6 inches long.(even then you will have to barely insert it into the drill u want It long as possible because u want the bit to go up and down against the wall of hole if it is at an angle it will nick the spark plug itself and possibly break off) I found one made by Milwaukee that's a foot long #48-89-2770. Put it on ur drill and gently drill down the edge of the hole till u feel the bottom the plug is in. poke it in and out wiggle it around a little bit you are just trying to loosen up the melted boot after that stick a hook/pick down there to pull out the loose boot (I used a metal hanger I bent and cut at an angle so it was sharp. Be sure to use air to blow the hole out before u take plug out u don't want any junk to get in cylinder. Good luck people.

accordturb96

well i would think everyone having these melting issues on here are going to have way more issues regarding heat damage then just boots. They're designed for the heat but dam I dont want to imagine what everything else went through as you guys rocked the temp into the red or higher...

Troy6612

@accordturb96. It seems if ppl get the cheap plug wires they melt. The honda original equipment Or higher quality plugs I don't believe have this problem. Those engines are pretty solid a lil heat for a short time didn't ruin the one I worked on. My experience is after changing the plugs and wires it ran fine

beberle

It took me almost 4hrs yesterday to remove my spark plug boots, but with this info, you should be able to do it in half that time.
-- Backgound: my daughter's car w/ 150k miles was misfiring badly below 3k RPMs. Specifically under load. I replaced distributor cap & rotor (original) and then coil with no luck. I had replaced plugs 5yrs and 30k miles earlier, but wires were older aftermarket.
-- Trying to pull boots off, I yanked the wire completely off the boots. I used a needle-nose vice grips and got a Very strong hold on the plastic boot, but they wouldn't budge.
-- Now, the good stuff. Recommended tools (all purchased at Harbor Freight for $30): 1/4" chisel, 11" long-reach needle nose pliers, 14" foreceps, long regular screw driver, mallet. Shop Vac also comes in handy!
- How: I took the valve cover off for more room. Might be better to leave it on to keep plastic chips out, or cover the area with rags.
- Use the vice grips to break off big pieces, then the 1/4" chisel and mallet to split the plastic boot down the middle. 1/4" fits nicely between the spark plug electrode and the cylinder wall. Start pulling out pieces (needle nose works great higher up).
- this is where I determined it was the metal electrode clip that was stuck to the spark plug and not really the boot. The thin screwdriver works well to twist and break plastic from around the clip along with the chisel. You'll start to use the foreceps to get this deep now. Once the plastic is removed from around the metal clip, it will finall pull out with the needle nose.
- this leaves more room to dig the rest of the way down. The trick is the break the plastic boot wall/ring that's inside the rubber end cap and pull the pieces out to then pull the rubber cap out with the foreceps. This is where I used the shopvac w/ a 3/8" PVC tube taped on the end to suck out small pieces and clear-the-way. The rubber is easy to pull out once the plastic is gone; mine wasn't melted at all. Just oily and chewed up by the chisel.
- vacuum any crud from the cylinder and remove the plug. Mine were fairly loose.
- Now, 3 more to go ;-)

chrisarrick

I ran into this by making a stupid mistake. After a valve adjustment on my element, I was replacing the valve cover gasket. With the kit I got 8 spark plug seals. Why 8? I had no idea. per the package 4 were for japanese models and 4 were for chinese models. I'm in the US. I realize now they had had different inner diameters, and I installed the 4 with the smaller diameters. Anywhoo, long story short,3 of the 4 rubber boots from the ignition coils got lodged badly down by my plugs and did not want to come out. Following beberles great post, I tried to find long hemostats. not in my town. But I came across these o ring remover tools from autozone. I think they were $13, but tbh I'd have paid $100. the 2 longer ones worked great! I took my time, dug around, got them all broken up, then rigged my shop vac like he did and got all the rubber shreds out before removing the plugs. then I rigged a smaller tube to the shop vac and stuck that down inside the head and just did what I could in case any debris got down there. what a stupid mistake, and could have been very costly.
lesson is, take your time and do your research.