'85 Tercel SR5, new member new owner

[siebzy]

Hey all, recent Tercel 4wd purchaser here. Bought her in September, 201k miles. Stock as far as i know. Absolutely love the car, and it gets some great comments around town.

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Also a newbit mechanic, and hoped to learn something by doing simple maintenance on the car. Had it tuned up a few weeks ago (plugs, wires, cap+rotor, etc) and it ran great. New General Tire Altimax Arctics and I had a rock solid winter rig.

But she blew a spark plug on me today. Cylinder head is stripped right out . Sigh. Still love her.

[siebzy]

Located in SW Montana, purchased off the local craigslist.

[BaileySims]

The same happened to a friends ford focus years ago. I can't quite remember the procedure followed, but I remember we had went to an autozone and they sell a repair kit for such instances. It's just a tool that retread the spark plug hole and I think it comes with an extra piece to twist back into the place of the re-threaded hole.

This was the Tool that I remembered we had used.

http://m.autozone.com/test-scan-and-spe ... ?location=

[rer233]

Tool is called a "helicoil kit." No real biggie to repair.

[siebzy]

Yeah, I know about heli coils, used them plenty with skis. Easy enough to do with the motor in the car?

[rer233]

No problem to do with motor in car- just make sure the tap is lined up straight- you may have to remove distributor if #4 is the problem. I always smear the tap with wheel bearing grease to minimize alum. filings getting into the engine. I also like to run the engine for a few seconds after the hole is tapped (with the spark plug removed) to blow out anything that got in there.

[Petros]

That is an easy fix. if any aluminum shavings fall into the combustion chamber it will not harm anything, they are soft aluminum, it will just blow out the exhaust (more likely they will burn up with the first few power strokes of the engine). However, blowing it out as rer233 suggests is simple and a good idea.

you get a steel insert that goes in the oversized threaded hole you create, use high temperature lock-tight on it. It will give you a steel lined threaded hole for the spark plug. A lot more durable and stronger than the original, and gives you a permanent repair. There are many exotic cars these days that have impossible to reach spark plugs, and they usually end up with cross threaded spark plug holes, these kits are the way to go to not only fix it, but give it a more durable repair. of course if you to the dealership, their only "authorized" repair is to replace the head.

[siebzy]

Anyone got a part # or a link to a kit? My mechanic says it's pricey.

[Petros]

About $30 from Autozone (with free shipping). does he consider that pricy? you can get less costly ones on Amazon that will likely be good for a one time use. Just make sure you get the correct thread size for the Tercel spark plugs.

http://www.autozone.com/test-scan-and-s ... =PS:3:1:90