So I have a B16a civic eg hatch, just finished the swap probably 2 weeks ago. I blew a coolant hose off on the heater core which caused my headgasket to go and I had just started tearing it down to replace my headgasket and I go to remove my spark plugs and I literally rip the wire and the boot snaps and I notice that there is Melted plastic in all 4 spark plugs. How do I go about removing this? Or would I be better off buying a new head?

 

I would believe it was a rubber boot that got hard enough to become hard and brittle.

A long small tipped flat tip screw driver and a rubber mallet should let you "chisel" away the rubber boots I would think.

As it is, that hot of a head, you will need to send the head off to the machine shop to be milled flat as it is more than likely warped.

You don't actually have to pull the plugs out to get the head off, then you could in theory work from the underside on the plugs to get them out.

I think I would stick to the top side myself and work at chiseling the boots away until I could get a socket on them. Then torch the head from the bottom where the plug is to expand the hole and then pop the plug free, but that's me.

 

Wood like to know how the hell does something like this occur? This is like "Hey this is the top 10 **** that you don't see everyday on your car" stuff....

 

I think had it not been for my wife last weekend (the one before xmas weekend) seeing my temp gauge go up, this woulda happened to me.

I was busy driving for work and paying attention to traffic, enough so that there is a half way decent chance I wouldn't have notice the overheat until something gave up (head gasket etc).

I tend to peek at my temp gauge fairly often, but many times while paying attention to the road, I don't look for a fair amount of time in between. Once it starts to go, if you had just looked, you could drive a ways while overheating before noticing until it won't let you not notice any longer....