so my last resort my my spark plug threading issue is to use the helicoil kit. it was recommended that i find someone who has done this before to help me out, can anyone explain how to do the helicoil?

 

is it possible to dothe helicoil without removing the heads? i did a search and someone just said to remove the valve cover and mess witht he valves etc then do the helicoil so it sounded like you could do it without removing the heads but is there a way just to do it without any tear down etc. just drill tap and helicoil it right there. i really hope i dont have to do this but i might as well know how.

 

you can do it on the truck, but, you always risk damaging the cylinder, piston, or rings with the debris. when you tap it, goop it up with some heavy oil then blast it out with lots of compressed air, preferably with the exhaust valve open. also when you tap it, just go a little at a time, backing it all the way out and keep wiping the shavings off of the tap and you should be ok, the heavy oil will help contain the shavings.

 

thanks for the info, is it fairly straight forward? do i have to worry about going the wrong direction when i tap it or will it generally follow the path of the previous hole?

 

ive seen it done at shops, you dip the tap into a bucket of grease and jam it in (im talking about the engine). all of the shavings will be caught in the grease and then the heli coil inserts are glued in.

 

Drill hole, tap hole, install Heli-Coil. Since you're doing a spark plug hole, you want as little debris as mentioned above. You can use the grease method, and the compressed air method, and there's also a small vacuum you can buy that snaps on to the end of your air hose and comes with a small nozzle that should fit into the spark plug hole prior to intalling the Heli-Coil. I remember the SnapOn guy came around to our shop with one once, but I'm sure that you could find it cheaper from some of the tool places on the web