Is it worth saving?
I got off the phone with my buddy a while ago and his 1991 Probe GT just blew a spark plug. I haven’t seen the car yet but he says that some of the threading came out of the head. It has 130K on the clock and he is at least the third owner and it unknown how much the first two owners thrashed it. It is at least the second clutch. This is his DD.
A quick survey of eBay shows a head rebuilt for 199 bucks Should we bother or just let it go??
Can you heli-coil it??
Or Time-Sert. Good stuff, that.
I had misthreaded and overtorqued plug repaired on my car, I think they used a keen sert which has worked.
It's pretty common on those cars. There is a kit that you can buy that goes into the hole and then expands to cut threads on the way out then you can set the helicoil in the head. Or you could use the old shaving cream trick. Either way, 130k is just getting broke in on those things.
As mentioned, you can fix the head without even removing it. Don't let a car go for something that minor. However, sometimes when the threads are blown out, it's because the car was overheated at a bajillion degrees. I'm not saying that's the case, but if it is then a helicoil isn't going to fix the problem...the other 90% of the time it's an easy fix.
Bryce
Yea, my dad had to do that on his subaru, its not that big a deal, just fix it.
Awesome, I'll Stop by his place later and see just how bad it is and go from there.
Does anyone know if you can fit a twin cam head to it from an FE-DOHC Kia Sportage?
no, the fe3 head won't just drop on.
Nashco: the plug threads on these things are notoriously weak, even if you didn't cross-thread/booger any of the threads, if you try to change the plugs with the engine warm you have a good chance of unscrewing the threads along the plug. same with the turbo manifold, but those you can drill out to use a 10mm stud instead of the factory 8mm. you do have to drill out the holes in the manifold too, of course.
Fix it, keep running it. I have the same motor in my car. It's SO worth fixing it.
Make SURE that it's actually a F2T head for $189 if you go that route. There aren't a whole lot of difference, but the Turbo valves are better/stronger. I believe the cam is the same.
Either pull the head and replace the few HLA's that are surely gummed up, maybe do a basic valve job, etc. Or else do a simple Heli-coil / Time / et cetera thread insert being careful to control cutting mess from falling into the cylinder, and move on. Happened to me, went the more difficult route, either works.
shaving cream trick?
CarKid1989 wrote: shaving cream trick?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=shaving+cream+spark+plug&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
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