jsmith011

Hello,

I'm pretty experienced as a mechanic but new to the CL, bought it yesterday for my daughter to take back to college, 1998 2.3 VTEC CL. I was very happy for the first 2 hours of driving, now regretting the buy.

Ran fine first two hours, then blew out a radiator hose above the engine, overheated, clamp went bad. Replaced the clamp, refilled, cooled down started up running pretty rough then smoothed out. 15 minutes down the highway towards home, engine running fine and cool but started to miss slightly, then worse, then one cylinder stopped firing, second cylinder stopped firing, barely limped off the exit.

Checked the codes, complained about the coolant temp, air/fuel mixture, misfiring Cyls 1, 2, 3 and random misfire.

Cleared all the codes, removed the exhaust heat shield, start it and runs super rough, running on 2 cyls, 2 center pipes cool as a cucumber, no firing going on those two, outside ones heat up.

Reset ECU (and clock) fuse, no difference.

Strong smell of fuel when run, seems unburned fuel from the center two cylinders. Trued to pull spark plugs to see what's going on there and completely unable to get the spark plug caps off, first time in my life after hundreds of vehicles, cars, trucks, motorcysles, ATVs, jetskis. I'm a former Honda motorcycle shop mechanic, what's going on with those plus caps?

I gently twist, turn and raise the top cap, then tried more force, does not want to pull off. After working with one for 10 + minutes the rubber cap top lifted away from the lower bakelite section and the wire separated from the crimped end on the top of the plug. Tried a second, similar problem, I didn't pull so hard that the wire separated. Tried to remove the bakelite section, worked on it a long, long time. I could rotate but couldn't pull it up, finally it separated near the bottom, with the bakelite tube breaking and coming out, leaving the very bottom in there, no closer to being able to put a plug wrench on the spark plug.

Any clues as to how to address? What's the deal with the thin metal tube around the plug hole, is that part of the plug cap or part of the cylinder head, I didn't try to pull on it. Even if I were to pull the cylinder head I don't see how I'm going to be able to get the sparkplug out of this deep hole with the metal tub and part of the plug cap still on the top electrode of the plug.

Photos attached, help please. Greatly regretting my new Acura CL purchase at this point.





Thanks,

John

gigure

never seen this happen must have realy heated the engine up.. looks like you melted the plug caps onto the plugs.. good pair of nedle nose vise grips should work, gonna have to replace the wires,,
the metal tube is part of heads don't try and remove.. sorry to hear about the regrets..

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Definitely looks like the wire snapped off, hope you are able to get the plugs out of there.

jsmith011

I learned a little more about the spark plug tubes pressed into the head, bought the slimmest strong long nose pliers I can find but I think they'll be too large to fit inside the tubes.

It can't be melted because there's nothing to melt there, the bakelite body of the spark plug cap is intact, although brittle as you'd expect in a 1998, the metal end crimped on the wire (off now on one) is on the top of the plug. Looks like a rubber cap from the end of the spark cap is down in there, covering the plug body so I can't see the hex of the body or use a wrench on it. I wonder if someone used sealer below the spark plug cap, effort to stop oil leak into the plug maybe?

I'm thinking if I take off the valve cover and using heavy pliers rock/pry the tubes out of the head thinking I'll then be able to get to the plug, does that sound reasonable? Any better suggestions?

Once I finally get the plugs out and check the spark in the two non running cylinders (#2 and 3) what might I find, anything in common that I can look for? Plan to check compression and spark of course first.

Thanks for the help,

John

gigure

i use a silcone based dielectic grease on all my wires but not as a sealer only to create a better connection, a sealer would have no effect on oil leakage, but still a posibility. the pliers and even a screw driver to breake the cap into pieces(vacume out before removing plugs of course).removing valve cover and such won't give you much more room but this info is coming from past experience from an old 86 honda crx(my old baby), had a similar issue with the engine until i did a major swap to a 1.8 out of a prelude..

jsmith011

Just for reference for anyone who has a similar problem, probably people like the idiot that caused this don't read this forum.

What the previous person did was after screwing in the plugs they used 2 inches or so of RTV like sealant to completely seal the lower portion of the spark plugs and caps into the tubes, making it almost impossible to remove the plug caps.

I think their intention was to stop oil leakage into the plug threads, but it made removing the caps and thus the plugs impossible. Since the car is a 98 and the bakelite is old and brittle, most of the caps fragmented, with very careful work, rotation and lubricant I was able to get one of the four out intact.

See the picture for the sealant on the lower portion of the cap and another cap where the bakelite broke before the sealant would let go.



The only possible option to removing the other three plugs was to remove the valve covers and remove the tubes with lots of force, a pipe wrench and liquid wrench. Difficult to do, they were pressed into the head 15 years ago and takes a lot of force to extract them, only possible for me with a big pipe wrench, vise grips rotating the tubes as shown in the photo. Be very very careful not to damage the tubes surface like I did, you cannot buy replacement tubes, Honda does not sell them. Use a socket in the tubes to prevent crushing, a Craftsman 19 MM deep socket was a perfect interior fit. If you damage the surface it's very hard to stop oil leaks at the seals at the top when you put it back together. ETCG has a video and talks about removing these tubes, his came out easier than mine but he stresses the need to not damage the steel tube surfaces, very tough to do, took lots and lots of force to rotate and eventually work them up out of the head.



Once you have removed the tube you can then get to the plug, only down in a 2 inch hole now rather than 8 inches down like before, you can extract the broken lower pieces and the offending sealant.



I hope not many other people follow behind an idiot like this one and this may help if you do.

jsmith011

Also, this might help if your spark plug caps are sealed into the spark plug tubes on your Acura/Accord 2.2 or 2.3 engine, if the top of the plug cap pulls away and the plug wire breaks off at the crimp.

After removing the valve cover I used large curved long nose pliers (cheap at Harbor Freight) and after using liquid wrench squirted down the tubes and rotating to break the sealant grip on the tube wall was able to lever the plug cap up out of the tube in one case, despite the sealant filling the tube. Be careful doing this to not break the bakelite material of the cap, it's very brittle if the car is old like this 98.



This only worked for one out of four for me, in the other three cases the sealant was too much and the cap too brittle, was forced to do the tube removal from the head.

Good Luck!

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Sorry to hear you had so much trouble, sounds like whoever worked on the car before was a flipping idiot. I was coming back in here to suggest removing the valve cover but you figured it all out already. Nice work, props for hanging in there and figuring it out

GoStumpy

Necro-thread revival I know, but on purpose...


I just ran into this today, google'd how to fix it.. and came across this thread.


Just bought a '98 CL for cheap because previous owner bought new spark plugs but couldn't get the boots off.


He broke one of them trying and then gave up.. My attempts were not much better.


I ended up using needle-nose pliers to pick off the brittle pieces of the boot, and then the bottom bits I used a flathead screwdriver and a hammer to break it into little pieces (took a full hour) and an airhose to blow out the chunks.

Eventually I could hammer on my plug removing socket and get the damn thing out.


I really thought I was screwed for a while there, so I decided not to care too much about scoring the inside of that channel.


Just thought I'd chime in and say I had the same problem, and the only fix I could think of was to smash it to little bits and vacuum/blow them out!

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

holy fuck! what kind of back yard mechanic seals the tubes!? what a mess