I am having a friend change my plugs and wires on my 94 what kind of problems am I going to encounter with the plugs such as being stuck, car has 108k and I have no idea of past work on it except what I have put into it. What is the best approach to freeing up any plug that is unwilling to come out? I just had surgery on my left arm so I am currently unable to tackle it. Any suggestions would be appreciated!!

 

If hes replacing the wires I would be more worried about that.

There's no way to remove a stuck plug besides force. Just keep twisting. If it breaks you will probably have to remove the head. The good news is this almost never happens.

 

 

The plug wires are much harder. Do them one at a time and pay attention to the looms. I loosened the power steering pump bolts and slid it forward to get the wires in the hell hole on my 94. Make sure all wires click twice and a bit of dielectric grease in the boots. For the plugs I took off the tires and the inter wheel fenders and use antisieze on the plugs. The back pass side plug I used a $20 Stanley twist ratchet well worth it to buy if you do not have one. Plan on a all day job with a beer break every now and the to cool off and cuss.

 

Just watched the video I wish it was as easy as he made it look.

 

As already said, the wires are going to be the toughest part, especially the driver's side. Make sure you only do one wire at a time, and pay careful attention to how it was routed (because it is not going to be obvious). Access to the rear plugs is limited, but overall, not that bad of a job with the right tools. I also cut off one of the straight boots and used it to get the new plugs started. Worked like a charm. On my '95, the only thing I removed to get to the plugs was the ASR unit on the driver's side. Be careful with the dielectric grease. It should go on the inner surface of the boot and should not come in contact with the spark plug or the wire connector inside the boot.

 

Number 6 and 8 are very difficult to get to. Probably end up using a box end wrench or a short spark plug socket with square ends to get a box or open end wrench on it.

Use anti-seize on the new spark plug threads!

 

Thanks. Just learned something. I had always put the dielectric grease on all connections, exterior bulbs, etc.

 

I can make a suggestion or two here. Last year I had the Chevy garage do a complete tuneup on my 86. I didn't know the age of the plugs etc in it and was not set up to handle a broken plug or a stripped out plug hole if I had one snap or screw up the threads. Plugs, wires, cap, rotor, everything was done to have it all taken care of.

This year while doing some PM work, I found old plug wire residue burnt onto the air pipes above the exhaust manifolds, on the exhaust manifolds and some other minor stuff [from the old wire set apparently as it wasn't off the new plug wires]. I decided to wrap those air pipes and get some plug wire heat sleeves, some wire looms and other little stuff.

Not terribly expensive and ultimately found a couple of other issues with wire routing etc. Poor routing, 2 sets of wires wrapped around each other below the air pipes, that kind of stuff. Missing wire looms, a number of small things.

Here's a picture, I wasn't through with it at the time this picture was taken, more to do at that time [since finished that job]. Still had to reroute some wires, get the stainless steel straps on in place of the worm clamps, that kind of stuff but it gives you an idea of a couple of things to watch out for and possible issues you can avoid.


One more suggestion, assuming your wires are currently routed correctly. Take some pictures before starting, makes it easier to straighten up later.

One more trick if you do it yourself. When doing one plug wire at a time, tie a length of light colored string [easier to see] on one end of the wire as you pull it out to the other end. Now when putting the new one, with luck you can just pull the new one back through but worst case, you can work it around whatever to get it back in the same position as the original.