My 30K plug change

2007 with 75K. They look pretty shot, gap was + 050. Lot of white on the ground and what's with the rust color at the base of the porcelain, never saw that before. Anything to be concerned about?

P1000877

 

Look a lot better than mine!!! almost 90K on this set. Never noticed an issue, and not noticeably different after changing them.

 

Another pic for reference, lol.

 

I'd put them back in and run them another 70K. I change my plugs at 100K. I'm at 243,000 right now and have replaced mine twice. I never had any loss of performance before changing them nor any increase with the new ones.

 

I will note that mine were an utter B!^@# to remove after almost 90K miles. I have a feeling I put too much anti seize on the first time and it gummed up a bit over time. If for no other reason, I think I'll be replacing them in 40K in the hopes they come out easy.

 

They look better than mine did last change lol

 

How did you get that spark plug part out?! Or did it simply melt away?

 

That do any damage? Or ignorance is bliss sorta thing?

 

No idea lol. I assume it made its way out through the exhaust valve and lives in the header or cat now. Only indication anything was wrong was a really rough idle and maybe some power loss for a day or two, before i changed them since I knew they were overdue anyway. Purrs like a kitten ever since.

 

No damage that I know of lol Runs fine and doesn't drink any oil

 

I've backed off the anti-sieze since a few years ago for the same reason, it gums up and ends up hurting more than helping.

The copper color anti-sieze seems to stay a little wetter and resist drying out but I've pretty much stopped using any of it

 

I dunno about what they spec for stock but,

have pretty much never put anti-sieze, never had an issue
the one time I did, it gunked up making it feel wrong

and NGK for example makes their plugs with a special plating on the threads made to act as an anti-sieze so that it's not required, and releases during removal
one might think that, in addition to a crush washer, would make spark plugs one time use and done when removed,
but diagnosing other cars putting plugs back in, or during engine work, I've never had an issue re-using (assuming the plugs themselves are still good) regarding threads

cleaning threads of antisieze is probably a pain and involves a restorer bit

 

Yea it really only useful on old pushrod engines where the plugs are out in the elements.

 

It was definitely the copper colored stuff. But I've heard you should really only use a very small amount. I'm sure I overdid it.

 

As noted above, it's not necessary or even recommended any more. That said, I'm old school and use it anyway -- but only a tiny bit. Just can't help myself!

 

Wow. How long has it been since you replaced the plugs? How could that piece of spark plug not mess up the top of the piston? That’s Incredibly lucky.

 

They had about 50k on them, and that was about 5 months ago. I didn't see any carnage through the plug hole, but i was only using a flashlight and an eyeball. It's a small, light piece that's fairly malleable. If I had to venture a guess, it probably made a few little dings but only banged around a few dozen cycles before blowing out the exhaust. Still lucky indeed, especially not having a turbo to annihilate along the way