Gentleman, your help is required

[gillcover]

My Brother inlaw has one of them zafira things,,, now he's one spanner short of machanic and he tried to remove the glow plugs and yep you guessed it broke one so the question is, how do you remove a broken glow plug I've never been in that position so would'nt know myself. Although I'm thinking along the lines of drilling centre out and useing a stud remover, possibly.
So gentleman what do you reckon ???



Happy new year to all

[TonyN]

If its tight enough to break then you're not gonna get it out easily with anything else, the extractor will be quite small and may break to.

If you drill through it and it still doesn't come out then the head is gonna have to come off.

You need to seriously think about how far to go, before your left with an engine that that will need bigger surgery if you carry on and still fail to get it out, or just leave the broken bit in there, and see how well it starts on 3 good glowplugs.

I'd go with the latter!

[gillcover]

reply

Hi
The brother in law feels that all the plugs are nackered as it's a poor starter,
at this stage I dunno if he managed to get the other 3 out or not.Personally
I aint gonna get involved with this one but said I'd try and find out what I could, So by the sound of it I suspect it was the first one he tried to remove. Either way he has one big problem, does it help if you warm the engine up a bit first or does that make them tighter ,maybe a good soaking in wd 40/plus gas? I've not done many myself but not had any problems with removal of offending glow plugs

Thanks Tonyn

[Vagrant No2]

If the engine is hot it should help remove them as the 2 metals are different . I assume the head is alloy and the plugs will be steel so the head should expand and the plugs be a little looser .

[plumb bob]

The gentle use of a plumbers blow torch usually loosens things up.

WD40 wont work coz it wont get into the threads coz they are sealed against compression leakage.

[BUSHWHACKER]

It's a Vauxhall, scr4p it!!!

[Vagrant No2]

The gentle use of a plumbers blow torch usually loosens things up.

I find figs loosen me up !

[Phaeton]

Depending where it is & how the access is the local engine rebuilder/reborer, machine tool specialist may do it in-situ. Friend of mine crossthreaded & snapped a plug & they did it without taking the head off.

Best thing about this method is you don't get involved & so can't be blamed

Alan...

[gillcover]

reply

I knew you guys would come up with some answers, and I thankyou for it, shall pass on the info to b,i,l (brother-in -law) the balls in his court now ?
maybe one day he'll see the error of his ways and buy a surf
thanks again

[NiftyNev]

Had a problem with a broken spark plug years ago a couldn't get it out. The guy who eventually removed it used a punch of suitable size and a FBH. Held the punch on top of plug and gave it an allmighty crack with the hammer once. Plug was shocked loose and came out easily. Don't know if this will work with a glowplug though but if all else fails then worth a try. You could also weld something to the top of plug and use that to remove it. Maybe a bolt.

Nev