2 weeks ago, driving around town, immediately after going over a speed bump, there is a very loud bang, followed by the car violently shaking, so I pull over immediately and once stopped notice the engine is the cause of the shaking. Shut off engine, pop hood expecting to see a big hole in the block (not really since you can't see the block). Actually discovered cylinder 1 spark plug wire, boot, and plug laying on top of the valve cover. Walk home, grab some tools, go back to reinstall the plug, assuming maybe I didn't tighten the plug all the way 3 years ago when I changed them. But no, plug started tightening up, then got loose. Threads stripped in the head. Worried I was going to have to replace the head, but found with some searching on northamericanmotoring, that it could be repaired with timeserts. Bought the toolkit and 5 timeserts. Spent an afternoon doing the job. ordered new plugs, installed those after letting the car sit for a couple days for the red loctite to fully cure. Discovered 2 more plugs were loose, cylinder 4 was still torqued. Car is running great now.
Moral of story, apparently the plugs need to be checked to make sure they haven't loosened themselves over time as that is a common problem. Also, looks like I'll be replacing my plugs every 40-50k miles instead of the 100k I thought I would get out of them...
And, I have the tool available if anyone else runs into this issue.
------------- '05 Cooper, BRG, Aerokit, Sport Package, 135k '89 325iX, Diamondblack, 270k
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