Well, a fairly simple job turned into almost a nightmare! I ventured to replace my plugs after they tested bad. Two out of three plugs I removed broke apart at the tip junction. One of them with the center rod still attached to the tip which I put a pair of locking pliers on it and tapped loose and managed to pull it out of the hole. the other tip is stuck in the hole. I don't see any way to get it out except to open up the head plate which is NOT something I want to try now. What might have happened is the key was left on the ignition position for a prolonged time (hours) and the tip got hot enough to get welded onto the wall of the hole. I decide to go ahead seal the hole with a plug and not to touch the other 5 bad plugs, since there is a good chance that most of them are also stuck. I think from now on I just have to rely on the coolant heater I got. ANY ADVICE? dO I HAVE ANOTHER OPTION? Thanks for your input. Erwin

 

I hate to "what-if", but what if the piece that is stuck there eventually works itself loose from the vibration and falls into the combustion chamber? You could be looking at a very expensive, catastrophic failure.

 

I was told by a Diesel machanic not to worry about that. I know that the plug is in the pre-conbustion chamber to warm up the air going into the cylinder (combustion chamber?). I guess if the piece fall off it can be sucked into the cylinder if it's smaller than the openning or plug the openning if it's bigger (?) I don't know how the inside of the mortor looks like to speculate. All the diesel vaterans there, please give us some light!

 

It needs to be removed. The glow plug tip does protrude into the combustion chamber on this engine. Which plug is it? (location)

 

I've got recent experience with this. It happened to me only two weeks ago. I picked the brains of some very experienced people, and found that there are a few options. One is to pull the head, and have it removed from the inside. Unless you do it yourself, it's very expensive, in the $1500-2500 range. I eliminated that option based on price.
Another option that was suggested was to remove as much of the top end of the glow plug as you could, saturate the broken piece with PB Blaster or Kroil as much as possible. Let it soak for a few hours. Remove the hood, fire 'er up, and let engine compression blow it out the top of the hole. I eliminated this option for two reasons: the piston could be on the way down when I started it up, and the broken piece could be sucked in rather than blown out. Also, it seemed just a little too spectacular. I was looking for something a little more controlled.
The third option sounded like the most feasible. Pull the injector from the cylinder, and bump the starter to get the piston as close to TDC as possible. Then saturate the broken glow plug with PB Blaster or Kroil to loosen it up. Using a long, thin punch, push the broken piece into the cylinder, on top of the piston. Fish it out of the cylinder using a small telescoping magnet, through the injector hole. I know of two guys that have done this. It's time consuming, and tedious, but it can be done.
That's what I decided to do. I went as far as trying to push it into the cylinder, but couldn't get it to budge. I finally gave up, deciding that I'd have to learn to live with seven functional glow plugs. I put the top section of the broken glow plug back in the hole, put everything back together, and took 'er for a spin. About a mile from home, the PB Blaster finally broke it loose, and the stub fell into the cylinder while I was driving 45mph. There was a little commotion, and a significant loss of compression in that cylinder. I limped home, expecting the worst. I pulled the valve cover, and discovered that when the broken section fell into the cylinder, there was nothing holding back the compression from that cylinder, so it blew the wire out of the middle of the glow plug, and gave me a big compression leak. Inside the valve cover, I found small fragments of what had been the broken section, that had been stuck down in the hole. I felt around inside the glow plug hole, and discovered that the path was clear. I put in another glow plug, put everything back together, and fired 'er up. It was either going to run, or I'd need a new block.
I'm a very lucky individual. It started, ran smoothly, and has run well ever since. The broken fragment had been beaten to a pulp by the piston, and miraculously worked it's way past the exhaust valve and the turbo, with no apparent damage.
I wouldn't recommend you try what worked for me, but I'd try the magnet idea.

 

Dang Quad. Where do I get in line to buy some of your kind of luck? That's an amazing story.

Since I've yet to have reason to remove a glow plug let me ask a question. Is there enough room in the glow plug hole for a drill bit? I wonder if it would be possible to drill a small hole through the stuck tip, the run a screw in it and remove it with a small slide hammer. Like the dent puller the body shops use.

 

Are you sure it didn't blow the glow plug tip up through the body of the glow plug itself and never even enter the cylinder?

 

I can't tell you where to find the kind of luck I have sometimes, but I sure bought a lot of lottery tickets that week, thinking it might continue.
The hole in the head for the glow plug is quite small, appoximately 3/8" in diameter, and quite long, probably 6". Then, at the end of the hole, it tapers to only 1/4". To do what you describe, you'd need to be able to hit the broken glow plug portion without touching the side of the head where the taper is, since that's the actual spot where the seal is made between the glow plug and the head. The threads at the top aren't the seal. It's difficult enough trying to center a punch on the glow plug stub, let alone have it try to "walk" on you the way a drill bit would.
A few of the fragments came out the top, but most had to go through the cylinder. The shaft from the glow plug was still threaded in place, and the only "escape route" for the fragments to take would have been through the core of the glow plug shaft, and that is less than 1/4" diameter. There were a few fragments inside the core when I pulled it out of the head, but they were big enough to clog the hole in the glow plug shaft, so the few that I found in the top of the head were possibly the only ones that exited that way. I did an oil change immediately thereafter, and found no fragments in the oil.
The next time I start whining about never having any luck, I'll remember this.

 

I broke a couple plug tips off on one of my old trucks , soaked it and flash it up and blew it out the top. Had one on the other bank that wouldn't move and ended up pulling the head. If your going to leave it don't screw anything in above it and give it a chance to come out the top if it comes loose.

 

Quad, I can’t express how much I appreciate the story you shared. When I posted my message I just knew that I must not be the only poor bad-lucked guy with broken tips. There got to be someone else out there and someone must have been looking HARD into this. THANK YOU!

 

OK I am scared I have a 99 PSD 112k miles on it, so-far no glow plug problems, but if/when it happens I want to know if there is a way to avoid this hastle, soak in wd-40 pb blaster, for a week straight?

Jt

 

Apparently, what's happened to eyyu and I is relatively rare. The glow plugs don't do much for you during the summer, so if you have one inoperable, you might not notice for a while. Mine might have been broken off for quite a while before I noticed it. My recommendation would be to attend to it as soon as you realize you have a problem. The longer you go with a dead plug, the better the chance that it could happen to you.
Another recommendation is to use good quality glow plugs in the first place. The best ones are Beru/Motorcraft, available at Autozone for about $9. Not knowing any better, I put in Autolites two years ago. That's what broke off on me, Autolite. Never again.
I wouldn't worry about it too much, though. It's quite uncommon to have this kind of failure.
eyyu- Get back to us on how it all works out for you.

 

Yes, Beru's are the best. Last for years and years.

 

i broke the tip off one of mine. i just left it alone thinking" hell, 7 will do for me. and then one day "3 months later" i was idling around the ranch road and POW it just blow out. i thought OH BOY!! i had the spare glow plug and a 3/8th socket sitting in the door. put it in there and all is well. 3 months. it worked fine for me got a nice little ding in the hood. people ask about it all the time. but i don't care. im retty easy-going about that kinda stuff, just dont forget about them. you may think its bad, but its really good. i dont think there is any way it can actually suck in the hole with 1200 psi combustion ressure is trying to force it out. he wasnt lucky, he was just smart about it

 

Did it come right through the valve cover, then?