How do you turn this:


Into this:


Just make sure your service guys screw it into the rocker cover so tight that when you try to remove it with a hex key it strips the inside of the hex bolt necessitating much drilling, swearing, grinding and wasted time.



And all this to inspect the tightness of my spark plugs .

Now I'm used to this sort of thing. I spent the better part of my late teens/early twenties lying in a puddle of oil under a car that predated me by 2 years (1966 Datsun Fairlady 1600 for the inquisitive). I've got the scars on my knuckles from trying to remove bolts that were over tightened and burred 20 years previously.

But I don't expect this sort of thing from a car that is only a year and a half old, and not when I'm doing something as basic as remove the spark plug cover. Took me about 3 hours just to get that bolt out.

Anyways, I've had my rant. My spark plugs were fine, thanks for asking .

 

Ouch,
That Greg Stevens scaring everyone unncessarily.....

No actually..., I gotta check mine too, be right back.

 

LOL, that's what I said!

 

Hey! Your brake master cylinder and battery are on the wrong side of the engine bay!

Looks like a bit of corrosion there on the intact hex bolt.

 

Not corrosion. I expect it is super strong locktite of the type that strips hex heads !

 

I was cursing Greg two minutes after starting this spark plug check. The cover bolts must have been torqued to about 100 ft-lbs, and I almost (but not quite) stripped one of them. What I thought was going to be a five minute job turned out to be nearly 3 hours when I include the time to go out and buy a spark plug wrench that was the right size! With all that effort involved, I was at least hoping for a slightly loose plug somewhere. Wrong! They were all nice and tight. What a disappointment.

Thanks Greg! I felt I jad wasted 2 hours of my Saturday morning when I could have been putting on an extra coat of Zaino!

 

LOL!!!

Hey, I'm just here to help...but you don't have to listen!!




But seriously, when I took my cover off last summer to do a dyno, mine came right off without any undue force...I was very surprised to see so many people having such difficulty with those little bastard screws.

As I said, I'm not how the plugs came loose (#1 was completely out and #2 was almost out), but I am quite sure that it had something to do with the failure. And a poll in Under the Hood shows that about 1/5th of the people who checked had one or more loose plugs...this CAN'T be a good thing! I don't know what part it played in what appeared to be some rather dramatic failure, but I think it was definitely a factor...

Glad yours were OK, Aus et al, who had trouble with those screws...it may have been a PITA, but hopefully it buys you some peace of mind.

 

I learned how to drive a clutch in a Datsun 1600, my brother-in-law's car. When I bought the S2000 I took it to show him and told him it was his fault I bought it. He never should have let me drive that car so long ago.