Broke off glow plug, remove heads?

go-baby-go · Apr 8, 2020

Well we decided to change the glow plugs in my 96 F250 7.3 Powerstroke. Well driver side went fine, we get to the passenger side and everything was great till the last one. The rear gp on the passenger side had evidently been changed at some point before I bought the truck and whoever replaced it put the wrong gp in it. The top part came out we looked up the part number on it and it was a Beru for a idi. The electrode is stuck!

We tried soaking it in PB Blaster, we tried pulling it, using a magnet, and tried blowing it out by turning over the engine. So looks like we are pulling the heads. Any need to know advice? Anything that needs to be replaced or upgraded within reason while we are in there? Any must have tools needed?

Thanks in advance yall!

Patrick Feeley · Apr 8, 2020

Can you grab part of it with some needle-nosed vise-grips? There has been some success with using those with some all-thread in place of the adjuster and something with some weight behind it as a slide-hammer setup. You could also try some Mercury Power-Tune to try and dissolve any carbon. Cheers!

ghohouston · Apr 8, 2020

1 glowplug will not keep an engine from starting, and not positive if it will even throw an engine light on an obs.

go-baby-go · Apr 8, 2020

We soaked in PB Blaster,was able to secure a screw in the electrode and used needle nose vice grips with a wrench around them to hammer upwards but had no luck yesterday or after it soaked over night.
Thank you for the suggestion!

go-baby-go · Apr 8, 2020

ghohouston said:
1 glowplug will not keep an engine from starting, and not positive if it will even throw an engine light on an obs.

Yes we could technically leave it and hope for the best but I rather fix it now before it falls and becomes an even bigger issue.

Petro · Apr 8, 2020

Ran into this issue on a superduty 7.3 a few years back. I used a pair of vise grips with a slide hammer attachment. If you can get a good bite on it, I'm sure it will come out but it's going to be a b!tch since its conveniently way in the back under the cowl. It took several good hits to get it free when I did it.

Lt.Dan · Apr 8, 2020

I had this happen, used the needle nose vice grip trick but I ended up tapping the flow plug IN toward the piston. It was able to break it loose, then came out with a little twisting.

Worth trying before pulling the head