Spark plug blew out

[RonMAIDEN]

I just paid off my truck a couple of months ago and hit 153k miles and this is my little story.

I was driving along and I heard this popping sound and thought it was another car and then I got on the gas and I heard it again and thougth "WTF?"
My first thought was I'd blown an exhaust gasket since that is what it sounded like and then I slowed down at a light and blue smoke starting coming from the wheel well and under the hood and I was thinking the motor had blown and fortunatly I was only a mile from my mechanic that sponsored my Eclipse (and handled some maintenance on my Toyota) so I pulled into his shop with the engine blowing smoke,popping and missing like crazy.
The only thing that kept me thinking the engine hadn't blown was the fact that the temp guage never moved.

We look under the hood and on the right side it looked bad with oil all over the place but we got a good look with a mirror and saw no oil coming from the block but was actually shooting out of the 2nd spark plug hole from the front so that made me feel a little better and pulled the coil off ands saw one of the oil seals was tore up and the spark plug had blown out but still screwed back in fine so that was a good thing.

The diagnosis was the coil pack apparently got a short and tore up one of the seals thus dripping oil down into the plug well and most likely lubed the plug threads till it vibrated itself loose and then blew out throwing oil all over the place.

It's all fixed now and they also removed the valve cover and checked out things underneath (I was concerned about sludge buildup) and it all looked good so they buttoned it all up with new seals and gaskets and a new coil pack and plug and will be picking it up in a litle bit.

So,just a minor glitch and a huge relief after thinking the worst.

 

[drmorbius]

I just paid off my truck a couple of months ago and hit 153k miles and this is my little story.

I was driving along and I heard this popping sound and thought it was another car and then I got on the gas and I heard it again and thougth "WTF?"
My first thought was I'd blown an exhaust gasket since that is what it sounded like and then I slowed down at a light and blue smoke starting coming from the wheel well and under the hood and I was thinking the motor had blown and fortunatly I was only a mile from my mechanic that sponsored my Eclipse (and handled some maintenance on my Toyota) so I pulled into his shop with the engine blowing smoke,popping and missing like crazy.
The only thing that kept me thinking the engine hadn't blown was the fact that the temp guage never moved.

We look under the hood and on the right side it looked bad with oil all over the place but we got a good look with a mirror and saw no oil coming from the block but was actually shooting out of the 2nd spark plug hole from the front so that made me feel a little better and pulled the coil off ands saw one of the oil seals was tore up and the spark plug had blown out but still screwed back in fine so that was a good thing.

The diagnosis was the coil pack apparently got a short and tore up one of the seals thus dripping oil down into the plug well and most likely lubed the plug threads till it vibrated itself loose and then blew out throwing oil all over the place.

It's all fixed now and they also removed the valve cover and checked out things underneath (I was concerned about sludge buildup) and it all looked good so they buttoned it all up with new seals and gaskets and a new coil pack and plug and will be picking it up in a litle bit.

So,just a minor glitch and a huge relief after thinking the worst.

That's a rare one and yeah you ARE lucky. Nobody wants to replace a head!:cheers:

 

[CJ3Flyr]

Ron,
Just curious, were you changing plugs at 30k or so? Or did you have Iridiums (or similar) and much higher mileage than 30k-40k since new plugs?

Glad it was a fairly minor repair.
:cheers:

 

[RonMAIDEN]

I change them every 35k and these were only in there for a little over 20k and my mechanic said he's seen the same thing before on other cars simply if the oil seals leak on engines where the plug wells go through the valve cover a'la Hemi style.

 

[CJ3Flyr]

Thanks, I asked 'cause my Trooper did it. Same deal, leaky o-ring on valve cover etc. I had about 55k on Platinum plugs and have wondered if the long interval contributed. I guess not

 

[MikesToy]

Lucky for you! But i think that's the jinx of holding a pink slip. Once you have a pink slip on-hand, something minor is gonna happen in 3 months (Need new tires, new stereo, accidently stain on carpet, etc. after babying it for awhile while the bank holds the slip). That's just my luck. :crybaby:

 

[losinstinks]

My '94 did the same thing. I have had it happen to me twice now and was thinking I needed to have no. 2 spark plug hole retreaded. The spark plug tightens down with no problem and does not feel loose. May need to replace the valve cover gadget on that side to stop oil from going down into that area.