old spark plugs and ceramic broke off into cylinder 2000 v70 xc Topic is solved

[lastdaysofarkansas]

I just bought a 2000 v70 xc with 200k miles on it for a very good price. I must admit I bought the car in haste simply because it seems perfect for my lifestyle. It has a few issues but most of them minor. Whoever had it before me wasn't much on car maintanence. The check engine light was on when I bought it and I had it checked out and plug 4 was misfiring. So as I was driving to go get it to where I could change out plug 4 another plug fouled out. As I started changing the plugs I immediately noticed how hard they were to get out. Super hard to turn. Got to plug 4 and heard a crack and should have stopped right there but I didn't. So as I pulled the plug out a I noticed a good size piece of ceramic missing. At the time I could see it with a flashlight, but now I cant. Also, upon examination of the other plugs I noticed a very small ceramic piece missing from plug 3. I have not started this car and will not start this car until I am confident that this is out of my engine. so if you are one of those people who suggest that the ceramic will break up and go out of the engine through the exhaust save your time and energy and do not reply. No offense. I'm just not taking that chance. I really love this car and want to see it come alive to it's full potential again. What I have going against me is I am not a mechanic and have no money to take it to one. What I have going for me is a lot, and I mean a lot of patience and a really good friend that is very knowledgeable on cars and has the tools. However his time is limited due to work, life etc. What I have tried so far is to vacuum it out using a home made modified vacuum apparatus to no avail. It was strong enough to pick up a quarter. However I also tried sticky tape on the end of a wire hanger and just eneded up moving the piece out of site. Haven't tried blowing it out or around with compressed air yet. Didn't know if that method would make it unreachable. A local mechanic told me to try that. However, that was about a 20 second phone conversation and he didn't seem too concerned. Was thinking about hand cranking the engine to tdc as to get better access, but the crank doesn't look easy to get to. My friend said he'd help remove the head, but I'd obviously rather not put either one of us through all that. I will remove the head if I have to. Patience pays. I'm aware of that. Any suggestions? Seems like an awesome forum and glad I have this tool for info.

[kahl]

I would go back to your vacuum method while shooting compressed air into the cylinder to move it around. Have the vacuum canister empty so you can see what you suck up.

[kahl]

I just saw you are very close to me. Let me know if you need any hands on help. I got a fleet of these cars.

[mrbrian200]

I would try attaching a small hose maybe half the diameter of the spark plug hole to a shop vac and fish around with it to see if I could pick it up. Clean out your shop vac good so it it's small enough to go through the hose you can will spot the bits it in the bottom of the vacuum canister easily. Use clear vinyl tubing so that you might see them suck through or get stuck somewhere in the middle of the tubing. Keep track of the bits that come out and match them up with the plugs that came off the affected cylinders so that you can be confident you got it all.

[abscate]

You could locate the bits with a borescope and use that to keep vacuuming until they are out. Anything smaller than a pencil eraser....












..you can just let blow out the exhaust...sorry....

[lastdaysofarkansas]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I was able to get the vast majority of it out using the vacuum method. Had a few good friends who are very knowledgeable on cars (as well as a few others) look at it and they looked at the pieces I got out compared to the broken plugs. 1 plug I was able to piece all of it together like a puzzle. The other had only a few pieces missing. It was suggested to start her up and reluctantly I did. I believe she is ok. My friends say they see no evidence of engine damage. However, she runs like she has a bad misfire. Also found a vacum hose torn to shreds from dryrot. Replaced the vacum hose and can't tell much difference. My coil packs looked like the were in bad shape so I tested them with an ohm meter and found 2 had no reading. The others did respond to the meter. I bought one coil pack from AutoZone to see if it made a difference and it did. My power was better but still not drivable. My only real question is about my code readings. I've hooked it up to a OBD-2 reader quite a few times and haven't had any misfire codes. Got a trans code, 2 turbo codes, manufacturer aux code and a heater code. Don't have the paper here with me otherwise I'd be much more specific. Anyway, shouldn't the code reader be picking up a misfire? I do believe it is a misfire. Sounds like a misfire and my coil packs are in real bad shape. Not to mention the plug wires. I am in the process of fixing coil packs and wires but first I want to confirm that those things are the problem. Also, several days ago before this happened, the code reader detected a misfire in cylinder 4 and now it isn't detecting any misfires. I guess that's what really has me puzzled. So can anybody explain to me if I had misfires why wouldn't the code reader throw a code for those misfires? Thanks in advance. Love this forum!

[abscate]

You don't have traditional spark plug wires on your car, but the wire loom that has the five plugs to the coil packs often looks like beavers have gnawed on it. It usually isn't a problem though.

It's hard to test a coil pack with a ohmmeter and get a definitive good/bad reading.

The misfire code is not reliable if the engine is running rough, it uses the timing to assign the cylinder misfire, so a rough running engine will fool it.

You should get those plugs out and measure compression on a new-to-you car . You can borrow a tester from Advance. Kahl is too busy sailing to help you this week.