W210 broken glow plug removal - plan to make a nice DIY post.
 

I would like to post a few photos along with a bit of "how to" on my recent 1999 E300TD 606 diesel broken glow plug ordeal. I got every one of them out. The first couple were a real chore and I almost "really screwed myself" with one of them early on in the process, but I perfected a method to a point where I easily removed even that one that I made a mess of with just a few dollars worth of special tool investment and a lot of deep thought. I have never done a forum post and I would like to attach photos etc. Where do I go to start a thread post? Send me a link if you would.

Thanks,
Leszek Skulski

Answer
 

I moved this to Diesel Discussion for review of your DIY, please add it to this thread.

Here is a thread explaining how to attach pictures.

Please tell me how to post pictures?
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/site-feedback/111992-please-tell-me-how-post-pictures.html


You can also e-mail DIY text and pictures to webmaster@peachparts.com





Have a great day.

All of us 606 owners I'm sure are always interested in new glow plug removal techniques... :)

It's in the Wiki
 

This DIY is in the Wiki HERE.

Nicely done- I'm staring down the barrel of this repair now.
I've already started to drill out the one stubborn glow plug that broke in the head.

Mine actually came out part of the way before it broke - the top 3-4 threads came out, the plug sheared across the threads when the "barrel" stuck hard in the carbon.

What about using a LH thread tap and LH thread bolt to - "bottom" into the existing portion of glow plug, then turn out the remaining portion of the GP?

So far ez outs have not worked well and I've been soaking this thing with PB blaster for quite some time now.

My '99 E300 has one plug with high resistance, and GP light stays on, along with CEL. Does anybody know which wire goes to which plug? My bad plug is on the black-and-blue wire, the one on the top, toward the driver side of the connector. It has to be #1,#3, #4, or #6, since it's on the end of a row of 3 wires. I guess it would be easy to find out if it's #1, as #1 looks to be the easiest to access without removing the intake manifold, although I haven't removed the plastic pans underneath to see if any others can be accessed from below.
Steve

The socket or the plug has the cylinder numbers cast into the plastic - get a flashlight and unplug the connector from the relay to the glowplugs and check it out. That is where you do the resistance checks from to find the bad one(s). Jim

Hi Guys,
What a life saver finding this thread and the detailed extraction method!

I'm working on a friend's '98 E300 TD and sure enough, the front 3 GP's were barely tight and came right out. #4 broke off at the top of the threads without moving hardly at all. #5 broke off at the top of the thread (the glow plug's threads, not the cylinder head's threads) when it was 3/4th unthreaded. #6 took me about an hour, but I did finally get it completely out.

I actually did #6 before #4, & #5. PB Blaster, heating the area around each GP with MAP Gas Torch, and rocking the GP's back and forth, moving "looser" each time, didn't help. 4 and 5 broke anyway. Talk about a kick in the nuts.

I guess the good news is that 4 and 5 are easy to get to with a drill and other tools of infinate destruction. I'll tear into it tomorrow and post photos so others can benefit.

What a son of @#$%&!!!

seriously, the glow plug removal technique was very interesting, definitely is a lifesaver to all.

is this always necessary
 

I mean should you not even attempt to take the glow plugs out for fear of breaking them off and jsut remove all this way as a precaution? Or can this be down post break? I am imagining not as imagine the part that breaks is the very tip vs the part that is drilled an tapped to avoid having to twist the glowplug out vs pull straight as the DIY seems to accomplish. Very interesting and well thought out! Nice Job!

Broken Glow Plugs do not always happen. Sometimes they all come out with no problems. But, from what I have read that does not seem to be the rule. It seems most have trouble getting out a least 1 GP although they do not always break it.

My opinion of the dilemma that has no really good answer:
The Glow Plugs are getting trapped by Carbon at the tip or the are seized in the threaded area of the Glow Plugs or both simultaneously. Ounce in awhile due to poor seating Carbon has leaked past the Glow Plug seating area by the tip and filled the space between the Glow Plug and the Head with Carbon.

If you buy a used Car you have a choice of leaving the Glow Plugs alone and dealing with them when you have a Glow Plug failure.

Or you can prepare for the worst possible problem and be prepared for some down time while you work on the Car and pick a time and remove all of them good or bad so that you that when you install them you can Ream/Clean the Carbon out of the Glow Plug Holes and put some Never-Seez type compound on the Glow Plug threads. So, that when one fails later it will come out with little chance of causing a problem.

I favor the last solution of when you first buy the Car plan a time to try to pull the Glow Plugs and do so expecting the worst case.

My thought is that they longer they are in the Cylinder Head without being serviced the harder they might be to get out later.
Having a mechanic do the job:

If you hire someone to pull your Glow Plugs and one or more breaks I doubt if they will want to take a chance of ruining you Cylinder Head in an attempt to drill out the Glow Plugs. So, they will want to remove the Cylinder Head and send it to a Machine Shop.

The fact that they will make more money off of you by pulling the Cylinder Head off is going to factor in their thinking.

Win Win for the repair shop; be safe do not drill out Glow Plugs; make more money on the labor and parts removing you Cylinder Head and sending it to a Machine Shop; and, they are also going to charge you extra to send it to the Machine Shop.

I say try to do it yourself (your going to be more careful than the Mechanic). If some Glow Plugs Break off try to drill them out yourself.
If you cannot drill them out yourself. Pull the Head off yourself and take it to a Machine Shop.

M-B has a tool to remove these plugs. If you take the car to a shop, find one with this tool. I'm sure that it is similar in spirit to the DIY in the wiki, but it costs about $1600. So expect to pay for this service too.

i know this is an old thread, but whats the best way to get the threads out of the head once you've drilled them out? I got 2 to do on this stupid car

well I got the plug out...This writeup saved me!!!!!

All I gotta say is that suuuuccckkkeeeddddd, very nervewracking.

Now to put it back together and hopefully it runs better :cool:

Could be worse... My son had one bad gp in his '98. Turned out to be #1 and it came out pretty easily. Then someone...that would be me... opened his big mouth and said "why not change them all while you're in there"... #2, #3, and #4 all broke despite our best efforts to coax them out. I wish that was the worst part but .. I tried to follow the very well written procedure but didn't drill at the right angle and finally surrendered (maybe too late).

So, the head is now off - actually not too bad a job to remove it. Hopefully the machine shop can correct the damage I've done to #2 and get #3 and #4 out. Wholesale price for a bare head (no valves, just the aluminum casting) is about $2,000... If we end up going that route this little fiasco is going to cost about $3,000 (head, transfer valve train, new head bolts, gaskets, etc.) Oh well, sometimes you get the bear and sometimes it gets you...In our defense we bought the car with 190k on it and it does not appear that there was anti-seize on any of the plugs.

On the bright side, if there is one, the car has about 25,000 miles on WVO and the injectors, valves, and cylinders look great (can still see the cross hatching on the cylinder walls). The plugs that came out show no sign of carbon build up on the tips or farther up. Problem seems to be corrosion / bonding of the gp threads to the head.

Anyone got an extra cylinder head sitting in a corner somewhere? :)