Spark plug hole from hell!!

[ovilla]

I was doing the coil pack dance, watching the RPM's on my autotap app so I could find the bad coil pack on my 02' Honda Odyssey. Anyway, I pulled out the coil pack for Cyl #2 (rear center plug) and the coil pack came out - minus the rubber insulator that goes on the tip (see pic).

What followed were some choice words followed by an immense interest in any tube that was roughly 3/4 in diameter. Yes I did try shoving an over sized socket in there. I even took out my torch and heated the socket, hoping to melt the rubber insulator in place - didn't work since it's made to withstand high temps.

I ended up using 3 bent picks, duct tape, shop vac, and finally the home made copper tool you see in the pics. I ALMOST shoved my torch into the deep spark plug hole but didn't want to end up on the 2014 Darwin Award list.

Anyway, 2 HOURS later and all is finally good with the world once again!

 

[ChevyEFI]

Some ******** got a raise for saving the OEM 2 cents per hole at your expense.

 

[404]

That is awesome. Well done.

Regards,
404

 

[Tossin]

Of course, it had to be a plug on the rear bank. Somewhere, Mr. Murphy was laughing.

Good job! Fortunately I didn't have that problem when I replaced the plugs on my '08 Odyssey.

 

[ovilla]

What really pissed me off was that coil pack #2 was just installed about 3 months ago, so it's basically brand new. It's one of Autozone's lifetime warranty duralast coils and I just noticed that they don't glue on the tip, like the factory Honda coils, that cost almost twice as much.

Anyway, I'm taking them all out to glue them on now. It's not like I'm ever going to use them any other way.

 

[srmofo]

Hose removal pics are the way to do those. They are long enough and stout enough to dig into and then behind the rubber. Ive had to dig a few out myself.

Check for oil in the tube. Most of the time the tube seals leak and they swell up from the little bit of oil

 

[Shadowdog500]

When I opened this tread I was expecting to find a stripped or cross threaded spark plug hole!

Wondering if you could put something like crazy glue on the lower end of the coil just above the raised lip and shove it back in the hole. With luck this may glue the rubber to the tip of the coil and allow it to be pulled out with the coil in about 10 minutes.

Chris

 

[fivespdcat]

The issue is not just the glue, because that will help a ton. It's also the material the aftermarket supplier chose to use for the boot. At high temperatures it will adhere to the plug and once that happens, glued or not, it's not coming out unless you have a pick and a lot of time (or your copper torture device). With the coils it's always good to do a quick quarter turn if you can to try and break the adhesion. High quality dielectric grease can help too in the future...

 

[Thumper68]

I feel your pain, I had to do the plugs and wires on a 98 ford ranger the one with 2 plugs per cyl, who the F designs a engine that you have to remove the upper half of the intake to change plugs. took me near 4 hours to do plugs and wires.

 

[hackwelder]

What really pissed me off was that coil pack #2 was just installed about 3 months ago, so it's basically brand new. It's one of Autozone's lifetime warranty duralast coils and I just noticed that they don't glue on the tip, like the factory Honda coils, that cost almost twice as much.

Anyway, I'm taking them all out to glue them on now. It's not like I'm ever going to use them any other way.

Be careful with Autozone parts, have been fixing up my GF's aging Focus and considered buying the parts there but the customer reviews on their own website were REALLY bad for the parts I needed (specifically a motor mount , a serpentine belt tensioner, and sway bar links), same deal where the part life was a few months and in some cases had been replaced multiple times.

 

[chris142]

at least you found the miss

 

[WhiffySpark]

Long nose needle nose ?

 

[rlitman]

Long nose needle nose ?

I don't know if that would make it, but I have some alligator nose forceps that would easily reach in there and grab it (though I don't know if they'd have the strength to pull that piece of rubber out).

A hook pick is the right tool for this, though finding one that's short enough to fit in the hole, yet long enough to grab the rubber may be a challenge.
I've been known to throw junk screwdrivers in a drawer and modify them with a torch, hammer and grinder to make just the right tool for this type of job, when the need arises. Last time that happened, I needed a seal puller with a short handle, and particularly stout yet thin and sharp nose.

This only strengthens my obsessions with pulling plug boots and liberally lubricating with dielectric grease long before I consider changing the plugs.

 

[Piece-it Pete]

[best Danny DeVito voice] Who the f decided to switch to COPs? I'll tell ya, I'll tell ya - the fing car manufacturers. They f ya in parts and f ya with their mechs. They f ya they f ya they f ya!

Pete

 

[AutoMotoGuy]

What really pissed me off was that coil pack #2 was just installed about 3 months ago, so it's basically brand new. It's one of Autozone's lifetime warranty duralast coils and I just noticed that they don't glue on the tip, like the factory Honda coils, that cost almost twice as much.

You get what you pay for. Autozone is good when in a pinch, but i will always replace with OEM.

 

[APEowner]

I don't know that I've done it on that exact type but I've had good luck with blasting those coil boots out with compressed air. I stick a hose on the end of the blow gun to get the pressure either below the boot or inside of it.

 

[ovilla]

The other reason why I've been buying from Auto Zone lately, besides the lifetime warranty and price (1/2 of what the dealer charges), is that Honda never has coil packs in stock for my van. This truly amazes me since you easily see 100's of Honda Odyssey's on the road each day - even my 02 model.

Anyway, I shouldn't complain too much. I just flipped 227K and even got new tires for the van.

 

[Frank Dukes]

ouch. you try rockauto for oem stuff?

 

[rlitman]

ouch. you try rockauto for oem stuff?

RockAuto doesn't have OEM stuff. I've had decent luck with them, but to be a RockAuto warehouse, it seems that they just ship some magnets, packing tape and instructions out to just about any independent parts warehouse, and now they're a RockAuto warehouse too.

 

[edsauto]

I think the missfire issue is valve adjustment. With 220k on it the valves are tight. I have not replaced a Honda coil yet. Time to pull valve covers.

 

[Frank Dukes]

gotcha. guess im used to GM. they carry AC Delco stuff.

 

[Leadberry]

It took me five years of dealing with Autozone/O'Reilly/Advance parts constantly failing to realize I just need to stick with OEM Honda.

Find a local dealer that has the full interactive parts catalog online. The dealers' online prices are almost always significantly cheaper than the phone/in-person price. Even if they don't have things in stock, my local dealer gets anything I need from Honda of America within a couple business days.

 

[bgarrett]

all this makes me happy that my newest car is a 1966

 

[Rickss96]

...High quality dielectric grease can help too in the future.

A couple of people here suggested dielectric grease. I assume they've used it and it holds up to the temperatures. You might also try antiseize to help them slide out in the future.

RockAuto doesn't have OEM stuff...

+1 on Rock Auto. They carry a lot of parts manufactured by the suppliers to the OEMs, so you can get the same quality parts. Although I don't know about Honda parts.

 

[rlitman]

A couple of people here suggested dielectric grease. I assume they've used it and it holds up to the temperatures. You might also try antiseize to help them slide out in the future.

+1 on Rock Auto. They carry a lot of parts manufactured by the suppliers to the OEMs, so you can get the same quality parts. Although I don't know about Honda parts.

Silicone dielectric grease will hold up to temperatures around 100F above the point where the plug's rubber boot starts to break down. It'll be fine.
I like a SMALL amount of antiseize on my plug threads, but most platinum and better plugs have special plating on the threads to prevent galling anyway, so it might not even be a good idea.

I'm not knocking Rock Auto, but it just isn't that simple. OEMs pick and choose parts from all sorts of manufacturers. Sometimes one production line will use one, and another will use another. Sometimes that difference is important, often, it is not.

For example, my Subaru Impreza made in Japan came OEM with SKF ball bearings in the rear, while Subaru Legacy's made the same time in Indiana used Timken tapered roller bearings in the rear. Years later, the high failure rate of the ball bearings made Subaru put out a service bulletin to use the dimensionally identical tapered roller bearings when replacing failed ball bearings. In my case, replacing with OEM (ball bearings) would be more likely to fail than to replace with the Timken.

But the bigger issue is that OEM engineers spec particular parts from the component manufacturers to meet specific requirements for their use. Sometimes the white box parts made by the same people are truly identical, but not always. Those occasional subtle differences can be an issue when they creep up.

Also, I've had fitment issues with Rock Auto's database saying a Subaru Forester with a particular engine needed a particular ignition coil, when the actual coil looked identical, although the connector was slightly different (enough that it did not fit). That's not an issue limited to Rock Auto, but errors do exist with many large parts databases.

 

[WVBrady]

...Also, I've had fitment issues with Rock Auto's database saying a Subaru Forester with a particular engine needed a particular ignition coil, when the actual coil looked identical, although the connector was slightly different (enough that it did not fit). That's not an issue limited to Rock Auto, but errors do exist with many large parts databases.

I take the part nos. from RA and then look on the Internet at the manufacturer's site to determine if it will fit my car. Sometimes RA will only list one model whereas it will fit several others.

 

[mech.reclined]

Di-electric lightly on the boots. Never put anti-seize on the outer part of the plug or in coil boot.It will send the spark down the outside of the plug. If you must use it on the threads,use restraint. Most plug companies give torque specs. with plugs dry

 

[brass89]

I was trying to figure out what happened being changed out so recently, then autozone was mentioned and pretty well explained it. Even carquest or napa would be better choices. It ***** that OEM are difficult to come by or expensive, but most (not all) times there's a reason.

To give an example, had a good customer swing by the shop trying to save money. Normally we didn't loan tools or advice and let them do their own thing, but he was good friends with the shop owner. The window reg on his grand caravan was toast. He goes to AZ, picks up a new one and after much cursing gets it installed. A week later, he's back in. Window reg is dead and he's frustrated. Makes use of his lifetime warranty. Redoes the repair, a couple weeks later, dead.

No lie, after the 4th replacement and around 6-8 weeks he was about to lose his marbles. Told him to bite the bullet and buy a quality window reg assy. Reluctantly he did. Surprise, it worked (and was still working several years after that repair).

Finally he started to grasp the difference of value between a part that's worth putting in a car vs one that's cheap regardless of the warranty. Autozone was fantastic, stood behind their warranty. At the end of the day, it's a matter of how many times do I really wanna screw with this repair.

Dilectric grease is always a good idea whether it's a standard boot/wire or c.o.p. design with a solid boot. The backside banks of a lot of vehicles have their issues. Sometimes you can loosen motor mounts and roll the motor using a combination of ratchet straps and floor jack to tilt the motor forward or back to get a better angle. Sometimes the engineers just plain ****. (tell me again how removing the RF wheel, fender well covers, mounts etc to replace the alternator on a mazda mvp is superior to one mounted in front... or how badly the engineers needed to shave off that last half inch of space that would've saved 2hrs of work and allowed it to slip out the topside.)

 

[hboy7777]

I think u may be getting into something much deeper. The problem with these is the spark plug threads break down from a bad casting. The heat from the cylinder leak gets past the spark plug threads melts the coil boot to the tube. Best case scenario is a time sert in the cylinder head but 90%of the time we do a used engine due to severe loss of compression in that cylinder after the failure. I've got lucky and caught them early like you did so you may be good. This is a well known problem in the Honda world

17yr Honda master tech. Btw