Last night I was changing the spark plugs in the Cirrus when one of them snapped off. It snapped right on top of the thread so the threaded body and bent over “tab piece” are still in place. I plugged the remaining ceramic part into the wire and put it back together but now it sounds like it has an exhaust leak so it’s probably not going to work. With the price of fuel I can live with three cylinders if need be and that will work but I’d like to fix it if possible without tearing it apart. It’s a $600 car and I’ve already had to put money into it and not want to spend much more. Then again I don’t have money for another car and fueling up the truck is painful. Does it sound like it’s possible to fix it without tearing it apart? It shouldn’t be stripped out, yet anyway, so I’m hoping maybe an easy out might work? Maybe heat it up and hope it comes loose. I have oil blowby in the cylinder so maybe an open flame is a bad idea? Anyway, any advice would be great. I just got the car back on the road after spending way too much time putting on a new power steering box and now this happens. I’m just sick of it!!!

Pb blaster or Krol's and let sit Minor heat from fast fire up no more then a minute and try again all else fails drill and place extractor in and go from there, just be prepared to shop vac out filings and or use compressed air with safety goggles. Run a spark plug bug threw the threads and anti sieze them. before install

Thanks, it's already broke so the extractor will probably be the thing to try. Now, will taking the valve cover off open that up to work on or will I have to take a bunch of stuff off?

I just got ahold of a mechanic friend and he said have to use an easy out and taking off the valve cover won't matter. I just hopped there was some other miracle fix I didn't know about. I never have luck with easy outs. Any tips on using them? I don't think I've ever gotten one to work!

I found this online. I don`t know if it really works or not.



"Spray away and get your nuts loose!

Independent testing of penetrating oils using a single steel bar with 1/2”x20 nuts torqued to 50 ft/lbs and treated with a 10% salt water solution that was allowed to rust. Listed are the chemicals and required removal torque.

-None ………………… 516 pounds

-WD-40 ……………… 238 pounds

-PB Blaster …………. 214 pounds

-Liquid Wrench ….. 127 pounds

-Kano Kroil ………… 106 pounds

-ATF-Acetone mix….53 pounds "

Thanks guys. Last night I soaked down the busted cylinder and the other stuck plug that I was afraid was going to break but didn't. After a couple hours the stuck plug came loose so now I just have the busted one stuck in there. Last night I got the easy out started and it seemed to move some but wanted to stop after a bit so I left it and kept spraying it down. I gave it a tug this morning and it still didn't want to move (that's what she said!). Patience is not a virtue of mine so I’m using great self restraint by not forcing it too much or setting the damn car on fire. After work I will go home and try again and soak it some more and pray. I don’t care if it takes a few days to loosen up so I’m gong to try really hard to be patient with it so I don’t make things worse.

By the way, would giving the easy out a little downward “whack” with a hammer possibly help loosen the threads or will that just mess up the threads?

Even if you do "muss" it up that is a dang easy head to pull.

alittle while back i had the same problem on a ford.

an old time boat mech told me to heat the head up around the plug as hot as i could get it with a propane/map torch and use a plain old house candle and melt the wax around the threaded part of the plug.

once it was hot enough you could see the wax traveling around the threads and after a bit the plug came right out.

Intersting use for candle wax!

Last night I broke 2 craftsman 12 point sockets trying to turn the easy out, and I didn't use all that much pressure compared to how I usually pull on things. Are there special square sockets to use with easy outs by chance? My dad is going to look for his 12 point snap-on to see if that will work. I won't be able to mess with it more until tomorrow after work. Until then we'll just continue spaying liquid wrench around it.

So taking the head off isn't too bad? What about pulling the cam and all that junk? Seems like it would be a pain to me. With that said I have very limited messing around with cams and aligning all that stuff.

These have worked every time for me on broken plugs

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?...amp;dir=catalog

How long are they? My plug issue is like 5" down in a hole and if I can't use a socket and have to use an end wrench the tool is going to need to be 6"-7" long.

Yes they make square sockets and 8 point sockets for taps and easy outs