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I've managed to twist off the top half of the compression test adapter in the glow plug hole of cylinder number 1. It could have been worse; I could have started with 7 or 8...
I was able to pull the Schrader components out through the hole in the adapter, so at least they're not rattling around on top of the piston. I don't know what these are made of, but to twist off the top using fairly low torque, and to be able to pull parts through a hole that is supposed to be too small is fairly telling of extra super low quality tools. Seems to be a low grade pot metal coated with low grade chrome.
I started with a small screw extractor and it merely enlarged the hole; moved up to the next size and it has also enlarged the hole but stopped before completely working its way through. I put a fair amount of torque on it, but stopped out of concern that it too would snap off. These screw extractors are made of hard, but brittle stuff; and who decided to call them 'easy outs' anyway...
Drilling it out seems risky since I have no idea how I'd get the metal particles out of the cylinder; doesn't seem like a shop vac would be able to get the job done. I'd hate to break off the 'easy out' in there because drilling that hardened steel would be more than a PITA.
Does anyone out here have any experience removing these type of objects?
Oh, and I don't recommend buying the diesel compression tester from Harbor Freight.
Finding a good easy out aside, the only thing that I can think of is rounding up a 12 grade bolt with left hand threads and a tap of a size that would work as an extractor.
I don't know if such an animal even exists.
After bringing the piston to TDC I managed to drill out most of the remaining adapter and run a tap through to spiff up the threads. Early on in my drilling attempts I used grease which worked pretty well to hold the metal shavings. When I decided to go for broke I opted not to use the grease because I wanted the particles to be light and not to stick to the top of the piston if gravity had its way. I removed the injector during the process and once done with drilling and re-tapping I used light compressed air in the glow plug hole with a shop vac on the injector hole to clear out the metal particles. Seems to have worked fine.