Alright, I’m new to the site and have been researching the heck out of my 1995 ford f250 power stroke. The problem I am having is the glow plug will not come out of the motor. The glow plug has sat in the engine for so long that it twisted the 10mm head thats on top of the glow plug off. So i am literally sitting flush with the head and the glow plug. And ideas?

 

Probably autolites were put in and the tips will swell up preventing you from getting them out. How many did that on you? There are lots of threads on what to do, do a search.

 

Hmm... that seems like really bad news.

Your situation seems somewhat common when Autolites or other "off brand" glow plugs are used, so it's recommended to use Motorcraft only glow plugs (I'm not saying you put those in though, but if you do put new plugs in don't use Autolites!) It seems very common that Autolites are put in these motors by people though despite what I've read! I was lucky that both 7.3s I had had worn out glow plug relays since the previous owners had autolite plugs in them. One of mine was almost stuck, but I got it out.



As for your dilemma, I don't have any good advice unfortunately. If those plugs are Auotlites in there, the tips often swell up where they get stuck and can't be taken out.

From what I've read, the safest way to get the glow plug out is to remove the cylinder head.......

The only other way I can think of getting it out is drilling, but that's going to be VERY risky. Hopefully someone can think of a better situation than drilling or removing the head!


Edit: Looks like Glenn beat me to it. I haven't searched for what to do when this happens, so maybe the threads with these issues will give you a better plan of action!

 

If all fails, removal of head is not that bad, plus it's a great opportunity to freshen up the top end. And only use Motorcraft/Beru glow plugs only anything else will cause what you are going thru.

 

if just one and is still tightened, just use the other 7 maybe

 

Okay bud, yea that sucks.....Your going to need to use some skill here, but you're going to have to extract that out.....so this is how i'd go about.....

get a small drimel with a small grinder wheel and cut off the tip of the glow plug lead, this is so you can get an bolt extractor over the warped hex head....

Look here for type of bolt extractors...... https://store.snapon.com/EXTRACTOR-TOOLS-C629167.aspx

Select which size you need, tap it on the glow plug, attached a ratchet and extract it!

If you don't know how to do this call your local machining shop you can really do some damage here.....btw, pictures are always helpful!

Good luck!

 

thanks for the advice, but I did end up getting it out. Since the glow plug was frozen and i had no way to extract it out, exspecially on the angle it is on, I did have to pull the head. Wasn’t to bad just time consuming. Now I have tried everything that is done by an extractor and still couldn’t get it out. (yes they were auto lights), But what I ended up doing was drilling out the top of the glow plug with a small drill pit and going up in size until i was extremely close to the threads. After I got the threads cleaned up you would think the glow plug would just fall out, well it didn’t. so I grabbed a extremely small drill pit and drilled from the end of the glow plug, (the side that glows in the cylinder). I knew how big of a risk this was but wasn’t in the mood to really care. After i got the hole big enough to stick a small piece of metal to a solid piece of the glow plug, i gave it a couple swings with a hammer without touching the cylinder head. After couple swings it come out The cause of the glow plug sticking was that it wasn’t tightened all the way so the combustion from that piston would go into the sleeve of the glow plug instead of being sealed. causing extreme carbon build up again the walls of the glow plug and the head. After cleaning up and making sure i didn’t hurt the cylinder head in any way i put a new one in and everything is perfectly fine. Now its time to clean up the motor.

 

Well that's good news you got that out with no damage! Too bad it turned into a big job though... Guess now is a good time to re-seal things with that extra room in there!

 

Check to see if your valves are sealing fully. How? Flip the head on one side and fill the intake/exhaust ports with water and see if the water tears around the valve seat ,if so a quick way and efficient way of doing is buying valve lapping compound and remove the valve springs and with 1/4 vacuum line stick it on the valve stem and gently doing left and right turns with your hands, after a couple of turns clean the residue and install the spring and lock, and do the test again if all went well you should have an nice sealed valve.