Tried to remove a rusty, crud-filled spark plug and snapped the threads off in the cylinder head. Haven't got it out yet (gonna use an Easy Out with an extension bit) but once I do, do I need to take the thing apart to clean inside it or what? Or is it going to be fine?

 

When it broke did the ceramic part of the plug break or did it all come out clean?

 

Came out clean. Threads stayed in, everything else came out.

 

In my opinion you should be good. I broke one clean a while back in a mazda and easy-out'd it. Never had any issues... I was sure to never seize the new ones :)

 

Allright I'll give it a shot. I'd like to put some penetrating oil in it too but that'll drip down into the engine. Will that be an issue?

 

The minute amount of penetrating oil that may get into the engine won't do anything and what little that may get in, will just burn off.

 

The tiniest peice of ceramic can destroy a cylinder so double check that NO ceramic broke off including the insulation at the tip. And in the future, always use high temp anti seize on plug threads and NEVER attempt to remove plugs on a hot engine. Wait until its stone cold.

 

I think the jury is still out on the heat theory... Maybe we should start a new thread to chase that rabbit :)

 

I tried an easy out on extensions but could not get it. I took it to my mechanic and he was able to get it out with great difficulty. He just used an easy out but had a competent person doing it instead of me. Almost had to pull the head.

 

 

No I doubt he did, he just pulled the broken plug and put it in the new one and gave me **** for doing it. Said that spark plugs rarely need to be changed anyway.

 

If you run plugs to fail then thats a pretty good approach. Ideally they need a routine schedule. Letting them run until something is wrong can cause other issues...