Greetings,

I'm having major issues on accessing the 3 rear spark plugs up against the firewall. This model does not have the 2 dog bone type mounts that you can unbolt and roll your engine forward somewhat and doing something similar with this model seems to be lacking and information does not seem to be easily found.

I have fairly large hands and forearms, which is making it near impossible to contort around the various hoses and such and get a good grip on the heat shield and pull them off, let alone actually reaching them.

Anyone with some good info on how to gain access to them more easily?

Thanks.

Ben

3/8 drive flex head ratchet.

Mike I think he is talking about getting to the heat shields around the spark plug boots.......

Even if you got your hand on them, there is no room to grab the boot and be able to twist it, to free it from the spark plug......

Those boots are usually baked on, and even if you could grab, twist and pull the boots off, you would probably damage the carbon fire in the wire.....

So when I do this job, plugs AND wires are replaced......

Here is the trick I do.....I take a large pry bar, and position it on the upper edge of the shield....give the end of the pry bar a good rap with a rubber mallet, and snap the top of the plug off, freeing the the top of the plug and boot and heat shield........then similar to what Mike uses, I have a spark plug socket on a ball swivel, I add a universal ball swivel to this , essentially creating a double ball swivel......add an extension and ratchet, and I can easily snake this setup onto the hexagonal base of the remaining piece of the spark plug in the head........

But before removing the base of the plug, I add an extension tube to my blow gun, to blow out any porcelain pieces that may have broken off and lie between the plug and the head......blow it out good and you don't have to worry about pieces falling into the cylinder...

Add never seize to the new plug threads, dielectric grease to the tip, and then take an old piece of fuel hose and attach it to the plug tip, to start/install the new plug.......the double swivel setup gets in there easy to tighten the new plugs......ball swivesl are much smoother than regular universal swivels.....hell of a lot easier putting the new boot/shields on the plugs than taking them off........

I agree, those boots do get cooked on and can be difficult to remove. Best to replace all wires and plugs at the same time.

Thanks for the advice. I'll grab a ball swivel spark plug socket and universal and give this method a whirl.