17 Feb Busting Heads
No, we’re not full of rage or anything, but one rogue spark plug sure seemed hell-bent to start some trouble.
The other day, Fluid MotorUnion encountered an E46 with an unusual problem, a problem that not many (if any) of us had encountered before. On this specific engine, during normal operation, a single spark plug decided that it didn’t want to follow the rules. This little renegade, torqued into place and working fine just moments before, decided that its current position in the engine was no longer satisfactory. Having decided upon this mindset, the spark plug demanded its release from the engine bay, shooting itself out of its position, messing up a good amount of things in the process. We couldn’t really determine the extent of the damage until we tore the engine down, which we did. Upon looking inside to see exactly what was ruined, we found the piston’s head a little kinked. It wasn’t a terrible amount of damage to the piston, but what it did to the valves was a little worse. Bent metal and a generally nasty-looking combustion chamber was the end result of this spark plug’s decision to get the hell out of Dodge (or, actually, BMW). Aside from improper installation on the part of whomever serviced this car last, we aren’t really sure what could cause such a massive failure of the spark plug. Either way, the E46 received a new motor, so all is good now, it’s just another one of those motor maladies that may never get put to rest. Here’s what we were greeted with:
On another, less anger-related note, we finished the E60 brake swap on our client Eric’s E38. The noise issue we found earlier was a result of the dust shield not being trimmed enough (even though we took a good amount of it off for fitment’s sake), so a couple seconds of clipping was all it took to get everything into place. Here’s the front and back brakes, already showing some dirtiness after a couple test drives around Fluid MotorUnion’s campus. Seriously, there’s so much salt on the roads around here that I’m pretty sure the roads are made out of McDonald’s french fries.
Matt
Posted at 15:13h, 17 FebruaryAfter being torqued properly a spark plug somehow backed out of my old (and now deceased) VW Beetle, but with less catastrophic damage. When I opened the deck lid, there it lay, still attached to the plug wire.
Greg
Posted at 23:08h, 21 FebruaryThat’s quite a bit of damage from one little spark plug!
Do you have any pictures of the piston, valves, and the combustion chamber?
fluidmotorunion
Posted at 09:14h, 22 FebruarySurprisingly, the piston only suffered a few knicks of damage, mostly from slapping into the valves. The combustion chamber on the whole is pretty intact. Most of the damage went down on the top.