Appetite4gnr

I have a 2005 honda civic automatic transmission and its at 60k, spark plugs never been changed ever. My dad was looking at one of the old plugs a couple weeks ago but didn't screw it back in tight enough. So when we were placing new plugs today, one of the cylinders inside was all brown. Is this bad or could any problems have occurred?

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

i think it should be fine. if it was serious enough, you would have felt the motor struggle running on 3 cylinders.

lazlong

Make sure to fully seat the plugs at 13 ft-lbs (yes, use a torque wrench). Not far enough in and it can cause pre-ignition which leads to burnt valves and rings among other things. To far in and they can be hit by internal parts, wear out sooner, or you can break them in the hole (believe me, you DO NOT want to do that).

Like GB said, you should be fine unless it's mis-firing.

metalshredder

So i've owned mine for about a week now, found that some numnuts before me stuck copper tip plugs in there.... Uggh...

I've got some double platinum Denso's ready to go in there. Just waiting on my locking extensions to arrive. Should be tuesday. Someone will laugh at this- I'm a Chevy guy from way back, so it never came up; I had no idea what locking extensions were FOR for until I started working on imports(recently)! On a chevy 350 the whole socket is accessible when changing plugs... who knew?

lazlong

^^ LOL, I feel ya. My best friend bleeds bowtie and I've had to teach him about imports. I get equal measures of "that's brilliant!" with "why the F did they do that?".

metalshredder

Yeah, something like that. For some reason I had the impression that these things were easy to work on. Maybe they are...I just haven't spent enough time under the hood of it yet.

So I before I ordered my new extensions, I asked my neighbor (another tool guy) if he had any. He said no, but he had a plug socket with extension already attached. Problem is, I hadn't seen him in a few days, I got paid (and wife's permission) so I ordered my tools. Today he comes by with the socket/extension...and it's nice. Snap-On swivel piece....and it's like...MMMMDAmmit!

MelJ

I envy those with enough moola to pay for Snap-On tools. They're so nice.

lollygagger

My dad will follow the Snap-On truck around until it stops so he can buy something lol

lazlong

LOL. I've done the same thing. I always have buyers remorse afterwords 'cause I always spend too much. Then I start using it and don't feel so bad.

lollygagger

Aren't most spark plugs pre-gapped? I mean, I don't have a torque wrench so I just tighten them to where I feel is best. Not too much, not too little. Is this wrong?

lazlong

The gap is the space between electrodes not how tight you tighten the plug.

metalshredder

Some are pre-gapped, not all. Usually the pre gapped ones are identified by having some sort of protector around the threaded end. I still might check them against what the manual says. Not sure though, if the pre-gap ones are set optimally for the plug, so to leave it alone? Not sure on that one. I've always left them alone on my chevy...

As far as the torque, remember that you're dealing with aluminum heads. You DON'T want to over-torque and strip it out. That would make for a bad time. I prefer to err on the side of caution and torque them to spec.

You never know who's gonan be Mother F'n Hercules and use a cheater bar on top of it all, and still say "I didnt put them THAT tight.." while he's got stripped out heads...

Yeah. That too.

MelJ

Always check the gap, even they say they're pregapped. My car calls for a .050" gap. I got some pregapped ngks, went in with the feeler and they were about .005" over. Even on the box it says double check. It only takes a few seconds to adjust them. The plugs are used over different heat ranges....so x and y might have the same plug heat range, but they may have different gap specs.

metalshredder

Yeah. I just quoted myself.

About that 'bad time' i mentioned....I did a bad bad thing.

I was changing my plugs, and one of them was coming out tight. I mean TIGHT. Like i'm putting wd-40, working it in/out as it's coming out. I get it out and the last thread or two had galded metal. ****. Great....

What did I do? THOUGHT i found the thread (by rotating plug backwards till it sets into thread) and installed the new plug. It was TIGHT. Not good, I know. It went in damn near all the way, but eeh...not quite. F'n tight though. It started up and runs good, damn strong, especially after replacing the downstream O2 sensor. Anyway, I think it's ok for now, but if I take it back out, I'll probably have to pull the head, over-bore, tap, and put a heli-coil.

Anyone ever done a repair such as this?

lazlong

If you're mechanically inclined at all it's a piece of cake.

1. Get a good kit (around $50)
2. Use grease on the helicoil when you're cutting the threads so it picks up as much of the shavings as possible
3. Make sure to get all the shavings out of the cylinder (I use one of those magnets on the telescopic pen)
4. Use thread locker on the insert so it doesn't move
5. Use thread ease on the spark plugs so this doesn't happen again.

Good luck.