I couldnt find any instructions on how to take out the spark plugs on the passenger side. Thought i'd post here to see if anyone has any ideas?

I heard of disconnecting the pass. side motor mount and jacking up the motor a bit, and heard of a special socket you can get. Whats the best possible way to change out the plugs? The drivers side is cake, but there is every single accesory in the world in the way on the passenger side.

Any help would rock. Its a 94 Z28 w/ stock manifolds.


Thanks
-Omar

 

good luck man

i couldnt take mine out either... so now i'm stuck with 4 new drivers side, and 4 old passenger side

 

i did mine, what a pita. i started with the passenger side first so i wouldnt get discouraged.

jack up the car, use a creeper, use a ratchet with a couple of small extensions nearby. reach your arm over the kmember and streatch back to find the plugs... use a light at the top and a light at the bottom to help see.

if all else fails, find someone who is a contortionist, and pay him to get em for ya. good luck

 

you must have the smallest hands in the world with more joints than a normal human

i cant fit my hand in there, and if one of my friends do, they cant manuever

only way for me to was to try to reach from teh top, and for that i gotta take out the alternator and crap

crazyyyy

 

Take the starter out and try from underneath?

 

much easier than taking out the alternator

 

hahah thats the samething i have right now.

I can see myself possibly taking them out from the top if i take off the alternator, but still its a real tight fit! Looks like it might be easier to take out the motor !!!

Someone should know

-Omar

 

the middle two are easy... and the first one, i put the soccet on there and took a 5/8 rench to the soccet cause the ratchet doesnt fit behind it. and i just left the last one... i didnt wanna break whatever my hand was against.

 

Here is how I finally got mine out. Remove the starter and remove the alt.

Use a swivel and plug socket from the top for #2. I got it with the swivel all cranked over and bound up. I had more trouble with the boot than the plug haha.

The other 3 from the bottom. 4 and 6 are a breeze. #8 also need an extension to get around the y-pipe/o2/manifold, but this time it was staight (the smaller extension i had was too long, used the swiv as extension.)

I shamefully admit, that at 100k, I too bailed on 2 and 8 and paid the price with poor performance and possbily accelerated other probs.

Good luck

 

With stk. manifolds you can get at all the plugs on the pass. side from up top. You will need to remove the alt. but that's no biggie, a couple of bolts and unplug two connectors after you remove the belt from below. That's how I did my plugs the last time it had stk. manifolds 4 years ago.

First I want to point out that no, I don't have skinny hands or arms. Get yourself a spark plug socket that has a 11/16" hex on the end where you would normally install your ratchet.

You can get at #8 from up top by climbing up on top of your rad support on your knees and kneeling over your engine, reach down directly from the top over where #8 plug would be and you will be able to get your hand on the plug wire and the plug. Install the plug socket after you remove the wire and use a 11/16" wrench to loosen the plug. Install in reverse procedure.

4 & 6 as mentioned before are a piece of cake from up top, again use the wrench to loosen and tighten the plug instead of the ratchet.

#2 will still be the tough one as you will have to work around the air pump pipe but again once you set the plug socket on there use the wrench to loosen and tighten it and you're good to go.

My car will need plugs over the coming winter and I plan to put a new set in without dropping the y-pipe. I will need to unbolt the starter though but even with my SLP headers in place it won't be that bad to get a new set of plugs in. When I start the plug change I'll post my progress.

 

haha, nope, i think your thinkin bout gettin em from the top...

the trick i use:
just get the car up on jackstands and reach over the passenger side arms a (from the front reaching for the back, and manuver tools in there.
i had to do it blind because my arm dosent have 3 elbows....

or just pay me $50 to do the job

 

Those # 2 and 8 seem to be the worst problem. I poked at/stared at/cussed and wasted a full day trying to figure out how to do #8. The next day I removed the metal A.I.R. hose off the manifolds, and viola....now its just a little contortioning to get the #8 out. Whether or not you want to remove the AIR stuff permenantly is more up to you, PO took out the pump, so the tubes werent doing anything anyway.
but now I can do all 8 in about an hour now.

 

I'd say that if you were anywhere near NC I'd do it for ya, I had no problem at all, maybe I'm a contortionist though, y anever know... You need to do a little "creative bending" but they all come out... #2 is the biggest PITA for me, just because I have to bend my wrist in all sorts of unnatural positions to get it out. I did use a rachet for all of them though, it'll fit, it's need a little TLC to fit in there too. Took me a solid 2 hours my first time. Thats only because I got the spark plug socket stuck on the #2 plug. And yeah you'll be doing 2+8 blinf for sure. No need to take off the starter or the alternator, just as I said "creative bending"... and sitting on top of your intake manifold... F-15E's are a bigger PITA to work on than these....

 

Yeah, 2 and 8 are the worst....took me about 4 hours just to do those. I got 8 first, and the on 2 I just broke it off, that way I could get a normal socket on it and had more room to work with

 

you dont have to take out the altenator to get to #2 i have short bulky italian arms and i got to it, my trick is to lay on the top of the engine and try to reach each plug with each arm to see which gives me the beast angle then i just bear the pain and go for it, i've found using an extra legnth of piping as a pull is helping a ton with getting them out from a leverage standpoint. so far i got 6 of 8 done in 3 days just doing 2 at a time taking my time and trying not to get ahead of myself. 6 is gonna be a pita tight fit and the f#cking dipstick is in the way but i am confident i can get it now 8 there is just not any way my hand is getting anywhere near it so i'll see if i can get any of my longer armed friends to help