NEED HELP (Stuck in Columbus)!!!

[aceyx]

Hello, my brother asked me to log in for him because he's got a small emergency. He is is stuck in Columbus, OH, with a broken down ti. If anyone can lend a hand, he'd much appreciate it. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

EDIT: Changed title thread to reflect updated location of predicament
EDIT2: Phone number removed.

[cali-ti]

sorry, not anywhere in the area, but responding to bump the thread back up.

[aceyx]

I don't really have the time at the moment, but thought I'd let everyone know: my car threw a spark plug out of the motor, taking the threads with it. My ti is sitting VOR at the BMW dealership in Akron, Ohio.

Thankfully, their service department was open on Saturdays, and their staff are real nice people. I have a craptastic rental car, and I'll need to go back Tuesday to pick mine up.

[cali-ti]

what the hell??? how does that happen? can they drill and retap the threads with a helicoil or equivalent? they say they're stronger than the original threads.

man, that sux. let us know how it goes.

[bimmer95]

I'm in Columbus, you could've called me, my number's at the bottom of my website. Any way... how the heck did you blow out a plug? Was it under torqued or cross threaded?

[DustenT]

I'm in Columbus, you could've called me, my number's at the bottom of my website. Any way... how the heck did you blow out a plug? Was it under torqued or cross threaded?

I blew a spark plug apart about a year ago. It was a cheap-O champion plug. Under full boost the porcelin (?) white part seperated from the metal threads. Holy crap, I thought I threw a rod.

[madfronter]

I don't really have the time at the moment, but thought I'd let everyone know: my car threw a spark plug out of the motor, taking the threads with it. My ti is sitting VOR at the BMW dealership in Akron, Ohio.

Thankfully, their service department was open on Saturdays, and their staff are real nice people. I have a craptastic rental car, and I'll need to go back Tuesday to pick mine up.

The same thing happened to me. The previous owner or someone must have cross threaded the sparkplug and it eventually blew out along with the threads. I had to put in a helacoil. Good luck man.

[madfronter]

here's the link to my story about my spark plug blow out. This was when I used the username NEKO.

http://www.318ti.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3642&highlight=spark+plug

[cali-ti]

how long ago was that and how has the helicoil been working? i broke two bolts under my car in generally insignificant places and got the opportunity (that's how to look at it optomistically, right? ;)) to use helicoils to fix them. pretty cool product. i wish my pics had turned out better for the write up i'm planning to do.

[madfronter]

That happened at 135,000 miles and I now have 180,000 miles on the car and havent had any problems. I havent ever tried to do anything to that spark plug in fear of something going wrong. So far so good though.

[cali-ti]

considering the places helicoils were designed for, your spark plug holes shouldn't be too hard on them :) good to hear a real life story of them though.

[aceyx]

I'm in Columbus, you could've called me, my number's at the bottom of my website. Any way... how the heck did you blow out a plug? Was it under torqued or cross threaded?
Didn't have internet. Plus, it happened at 11 at night and would have felt odd about calling for help.

I'm still completely unsure about how it happened, but I think I'll actually start using my torque wrench now. I've got a steel insert (not helicoil) in there keeping things together, and have pictures of the plug blown out and the cover all bent-up. I'm worried about what'll happen when I try and change the plugs at 200k, but at least it'll make a good donor car for a swap!

Final bill was $380, not bad all things considered.

[cali-ti]

post up the pics man! i wanna see :) glad your bill wasn't too bad.

[aceyx]

Picture of blown plug-boot. The plug itself was nowhere to be found (probably lying on the highway 30 miles north of Columbus).

Other picture is of the spark plug cover, completely bent out of shape. The 1/4 turn nut near cylinder #1 was gone. I was surprised it bent, rather than cracked.

[KetteringTi]

This exact same thing just happened to me about 3-1/2 hours ago. Hopefully my shop is competent enough (think so) and fair enough (hope so) to fix this without charging an arm and a leg. I'd like to think that I could do it myself, it'd probably get done faster that way! Any thoughts?

[jetblackbimmer]

How is your car running at 212K? Mine is at 135K. Running great.

[bnemmers]

Hi aceyx,

My 97 318ti 1.9L threw a plug too @103K
Did you do the work your self? And is there a kit that I can get to fix mine plug hole
Also do I have to remove the head or repair in place?


Thanks
Bill

[aceyx]

I was away from home so I didn't get to do the work myself. In all honesty, this is probably something I'd leave to professionals, but that's just me.

They were able to tap the hole (cylinder #1) without removing anything.


Is this happening on the same cylinder for everyone? If anyone can pop over to bf.c (I killed my account there years ago) and see if other M44 owners are having the same problem I'd much appreciate it.

[KetteringTi]

My spark plug must have been torqued improperly, because there was no damage to the threads. When I took it to the shop, they said that one of my spark plug wires was totally shot, and it happened to be the cylinder that jettisoned a spark plug. I'm thinking maybe that wire went bad and when it started to misfire the jolting and chugging the engine did, combined with an undertorqued and gradually loosened plug, shot the plug out.

Maybe I'm nuts though...