removing plug wires - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

lee polowczuk · #1 11-16-2004, 04:10 PM

I am having a time removing two plug wires.... the two closest to the radiator came off..

the other 4, I am twisting and pulling, rocking back and forth and twisting and pulling..

this is crazy....I hate to go to goodyear because I can't get the darn boots off.

gmercoleza · #2 11-16-2004, 04:29 PM

Hi, I went through a similar ordeal and feel your pain. There isn't a whole lot to do other than use a lot of elbow grease. You may even have to get creative. Below is a paragraph I posted a while back when I had to change out the wires on my car, a 1991 300E W124:

"Changing the plugs and wires was an ordeal and took me 4 hours - I wouldn't doubt if they were original too, or at least very old. Each wire disintegrated as I pulled on it, no joke. I had to bend each boot and crack the spark plug insulator within so that I could break and rip off the top half of the boot. Once the top was ripped off, exposing the shattered spark plug, I had to use 3 bugle-head screws driven in between the remaining boot and spark plug very slowly with a stubby screwdriver. Then I grabbed 2 of the 3 screws with a pair of pliers in each hand and wrestled with every ounce of my energy in order to get the remaining piece of boot off. My knuckles were bleeding pretty quickly. Once the boots were removed, I used my finger to suction a straw to the crevice tool on my vacuum cleaner. With my mini suction tool, I carefully vacuumed each spark plug recess and got all brittle plastic and broken ceramic insulator out of there. Then removing the plugs was incredibly hard - I used a 1/2 inch breaker bar with a 3/8 inch reducer to break each one loose. Fortunately, the threads in the cylinder head were not damaged, and lubricating the new plugs with WD-40 greatly assisted installation of the new plugs. The old plugs, by the way, looked fantastic - the gap was HUGE, I mean 3 times what it's supposed to be, but the terminals were dry with no oil, no blackening, no soot, just a very nice off-white color with all electrodes and insulators intact, though very worn looking. Again, I wouldn't doubt if these plugs had been in the car for 118,000 miles and 13 years. The cap and rotor were atrocious too - I don't know how the car ran so well. Interestingly, changing all these things did not result in any noticeable idle improvement."

Hope this helps you more than it scares you!

slilley · #3 11-26-2004, 08:40 PM

I feel your pain!!

When the same thing happened to me, others suggested using a 17mm open-end wrench to pry off the boots. That didn't work; in fact, this resulted in a broken spark plug -- my first and only in 15 years of doing auto maintenance. Finally, after much more research, I used a SnapOn Spark Plug Boot Removal Tool (it's actually labeled Blue Point), part number SBP-3 (I think it was about $25 from SnapOn's website). However, what really made the job much, much easier, was using that boot puller in combination with a long-handled curved-nose needlenose pliers I had. I would grab the boot with the Boot Tool, and then use the curved pliers resting on the engine block to pivot the Boot Tool away from the engine (like a lever). Unfortunately, I only discovered this trick about half-way thru the job, after much sweating and swearing using the Spark Plug Boot Removal Tool on it's own.

Regards,
Steve
'98 E320 Wagon

lee polowczuk · #4 11-26-2004, 09:32 PM

the curved needle nose is the best idea I have heard , yet.... I will have to buy a pair.

Sadly, Goodyear, would probably do it cheaper...but there is principal at stake here

lee

stevebfl · #5 11-26-2004, 11:15 PM

Goodyear?????????????? Why would one go to a tire store for a MB specific problem. The right tool is the answer, but it isn't a tireiron.

Actually, why would anyone go to a tire store for anything? Maybe to fix a flat in an emergency.

haasman · #6 11-27-2004, 03:44 PM

The SnapOn part number is: SBP3 found at: SnapOn Plug Boot Remover

Haasman

lee polowczuk · #7 11-27-2004, 04:59 PM

I was only able to do 6 of 8 on my wife's Expedition. They did the other two that were impossible to get at for 18 dollars.

The 3.0 has easy access. I will try the right tool..but it could cost me more in the long run.

BTW, I do most of my own work. The last place I would go with a car is a dealership.

Graham · #8 11-28-2004, 12:03 PM

I looked at our V-6 E320 for a month or so before deciding that this was not a job for me. I am a DIYr in most cases and it definitely went against the grain to have a dealer change spark plugs!

The cost was C$363.00+15% taxes! This included 12 plugs and 2.2 hrs of labour.

I doubt I will own this car long enough to do them again!

Mike Murrell · #9 11-28-2004, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lee polowczuk

The last place I would go with a car is a dealership.

Goodyear knows more about MBs than an MB dealership?

Huh?

lee polowczuk · #10 11-28-2004, 12:50 PM

that's one of the reasons I love the 300e.....very easy to work on..

I am sitting with 6 plugs at 1.38 each...

just need to get them in...ha-ha.

most other jobs seem to be a piece of cake

Richard Eldridge · #11 11-28-2004, 12:58 PM

I believe that any reasonably competent mechanic could be entrusted with replacing a set of spark plugs, including the dealer or even the Goodyear auto repair shops mentioned (They do routine maintainance in most of the US).

The reason to avoid the dealer would be an aversion to paying $363 to change sparkplugs costing at most $36 for all 12.

Dealers charge far higher hourly rates than nearly anyone else. Of course, sometimes this is merited (so far, not in the 62 years I have inhabited this planet), but I doubt that sparkplugs would be one of those cases.

stevebfl · #12 11-28-2004, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Eldridge

The reason to avoid the dealer would be an aversion to paying $363 to change sparkplugs costing at most $36 for all 12.

Yea just what sort of POS do you suppose you could get 12 of for $36. I'll wager a good price for those plugs is near $6. Looks like fastlane gets near six for the +4 Bosch plats. Can't really tell which one is the proper Bosch Plat but I'm guessing the one they want 7.01 is. In Canadian that is one h*ll of a lot more than $36; even in US it is.

The real damage to using GY is they might stick the +4s in there and then someone like me gets stuck trying to figure that intermittant miss for a price you won't see as theivery.

The hours described 2.2 is totally fair. See if you can do it in that time without ruining a few hundred in plug wires. eeeeeeek!!

Richard Eldridge · #13 11-28-2004, 01:45 PM

This is a moot point, because I am totally unlikely to buy a 12-cylinder car. Whan I had a gasser, I don't think I ever paid more than $3.00 for a spark plug, and they lasted years and never seemed to miss for me. But supposing that the plugs did cost $6.00 each, then I would be most certain of getting the super-expensive $6.00 plug by buying them myself.

$131.80 per hour is reasonable if it's someone else's money. Perhaps not my money. It takes me a lot of work to make my money. I tend to think I'd do this job myself, even if it took twice as long. I need to make at least $400 to pay anyone $363, being as I have to pay taxes on what I earn and so forth.

It's not that I doubt that some expert does not deserve $131.80 per hour, it's that I feel I deserve to keep it even more.

stevebfl · #14 11-28-2004, 02:16 PM

I have no problem with you avoiding the costs associated with the people of my trade making a living.

I have a real problem when ignorance is used in a statement designed to infer some level of malfeasance on the part of my trade. We are talking about a very efficient 6cylinder engine that uses two plugs per cylinder, not a 12cyl.

They are a special platinum plug that easily goes a 100k. They are a remarkable component to do this and they are over $10US a piece from MB. The poster stated the money in Canadian, but stated the hours billed. I didn't add it up but without much skill I was able to determine your biased rant was inappropriate and wrong.

Richard Eldridge · #15 11-28-2004, 02:47 PM

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that anyone was engaged in malfeasance fior charging $363 (even in Canadian Loonies) for a plug job.

I mistakenly thought that this was about a 12-cylinder motor, rather than a six with two plugs per cylinder. I once owned a Nissan with eight plugs for four cylinders. I seem to have managed to change the plugs in that car with little difficulty.

All I said was that I tend to think I would attempt to do the job myself, as I prefer to keep my money and learn something useful. I get a buzz out of working on my own car.

I also ventured the opinion that changing plugs is not such a high-tech job that it would require the most highly trained professionals. I do recognize that experience at doing any sort of mechanical job enables anyone to learn how to do a better job in less time.

As a College professor, I would not get upset if they hired someone else to erase the chalkboards, even though I really am highly competent at it. I realize that my skills can be better used on more challenging endeavors.

So please do not think I am trying to offend you or anyone. I certainly did not mean to imply any such thing.

If the car were mine, I would own a shop manual and find out as much as I could before doing a plug job. The tool for removing sparkplugs is quite useful and I still have one, though I don't think it was made by Snap-On.

I was responsing to the comment that Goodyear was an inappropriate place to take a car for a plug change, perhaps because the fellow who mentioned this seemed unaware that Goodyear operates shops where such basic maintainance is done. I am sure that some of these might have a mechanic entirely capable of doing a competent plug job.