Went to change the spark plugs on the Civic yesterday morning, and one of them decides to separate from the threads while I was removing it. The entire insulator porcelain part came out, but the threaded part with the electrode stayed in the head. Now I have nothing to grip to get it out. ****. So I tried an extractor (spiral type) after letting it soak in PB blaster and that seems to do nothing at all. This thing is stuck like a ****. Last night I went out and bought another type of extractor (fluted type) and a torch to heat up the head a little. I'll give this a try later this morning. So if this doesn't work I guess my last option is to rip it apart, which I don't really have the capability to do at the moment and I really don't want to have to take it to a shop if I don't have to.

 

Heat warps heads. Bad idea.

 

ford trucks are famous for this problem... there is a "spark plug extractor kit" on the market for this exact problem.
i know that snap on makes one but of course its like $500... there are other companies out there that make an affordable kit...
if you dont want to or your cant remove the head to fix it, i would recommend this kit...kinda sucks to spend the money on tools you will only use once (hopefully) but when your done then throw it on craigslist or ebay

good luck bud.

 

That is my absolute last resort and I'll be extremely cautious if I do end up doing that. Heading down to the in-laws soon, I'm going to snag a big breaker bar from her dad first. I broke my wrench, never buying a Husky tool again.

 

Oyy, you got a damn booboo on your hands.

 

Never thought such an easy thing could be such a pain the ***. I never even seen a plug separate like this before.

 

That isn't your last resort. It should even be an option. You're going to probably wind up taking off the head to bring it to a shop.

 

Is this the type you're talking about trying? I've personally had amazing luck with them, on just about everything

 

No, I couldn't use those^^^ because there is no hex bolt to grab onto, it came out with the rest of the plug, I had to grip it from inside of the threads on the plug.

I just got it out though. yay! The threads on the head seem to be alright and the threads on the plug were fine. I ran a small magnet down into the plug hole and picked up some shavings; probably from the spiral type extractor I used first. Unfortunately the magnet was just a little too large to fit into the combustion chamber. So tomorrow I'm going to find a smaller magnet and get some small diameter rubber hosing to rig up to a vacuum to suck out any pieces that may have dropped down in there.

I didn't heat it up, btw.

 

That's awesome. Congrats and thanks for following up

 

i would run a thread cleaner thru it to sure up the threads.