Jim996cab

Hello all, while waiting for a new coolant hard pipe (due to a change in design on one of the coolant hoses) I decided to see what the oil leak underneath the spark plug was all about. Thought you would appreciate seeing the info. Replaced upper and lower seals on the tube as this one was very easy to reach. Hope to change spark plugs too, but that’s another day; waiting to get back on the road this week after water pump, etc. the forums say that changing plugs “isn’t hard” but I’m not so sure.



Oil weeping down drivers side front plug; picture should be rotated clockwise 90 degrees; I don’t know how to do that

Spark plug tube came out with my clean fresh oil on it. Kudos to the suggestion of using a 1” expanding rubber plug;transom plug to yank it out

Black: old inner seal; green: new inner seal; red: old outer seal.

wyovino

Changing the plugs is easier than replacing the tubes. You've already done most of the work.

Jim996cab

Thank you wyovino; however I’ve only done the one tube for now. I want to make sure I get everything back together and everything is good before I go changing too much stuff at once. Tell me - lots of discussion re: removing mufflers and not removing mufflers. From my cursory glance, the plugs seemed pretty difficult to get to. Some people say it’s a cake walk, some people say it’s a suicide mission. What’s your experience?

808Bill

The mufflers are real easy to remove in most cases. The plugs then can be done with you eyes closed. In fact I can remove the mufflers with my eyes closed too.

pesuazo

+1
Muffler removal is a must (for me) when dealing with sparkplugs.....

ssherman68

I'm about to change my plugs/tubes/coils in the next week or so. I've also been doing a lot of reading about this. There are two camps:

Camp one: "You have to remove the mufflers. If you don't you're an idiot and it will take you twice as long."

Camp two: "You don't need to remove the mufflers. If you do you're an idiot. You'll break the muffler connecting hardware and it will take twice as long because you'll need to buy new nuts, bolts, etc"

Welcome to the wisdom of the internet

In reality, I think it depends on your access situation. If you have a lift, if you have smaller, wrenches with movable extensions, how big your hands are, etc.

For me, I am buying what I *think* are the right tools and will try to do it without removing the mufflers. We will see which camp I end up in.

jobyt

This was the first thing I did when I took delivery of my '98 C2 a couple of years ago. Plugs/tubes/coils. I'm in camp #3 - you don't have to remove the mufflers, but it does make it easier to get to #1 and #4. Get a 1" boat plug to pull the old tubes and install all new tubes and o-rings. Make sure you hear the 'thunk' to ensure the tube is fully seated before inserting the spark plug. My #4 tube had a small leak and the oil caused the coil to swell so much that it broke when I pulled it. (Good thing I had planned to replace it anyway!)

ssherman68

I just got mine 7 weeks ago so this will be my first big maintenance item too. I have the boat plug already and have tested it out in the new tubes. I have almost all the parts. Pelican sold me on the newer 997 style coil and I'm hearing the heat shield bolt needs to be extended to fit correctly with them. I'm waiting to hear back from them on what parts might be needed for that. I'm also doing the oil at the same time and I'm waiting for an oil drain pan to ship. I'd been outsourcing oil changes on my cars for years so I don't have one anymore.

jobyt

6mm washers will space out the heat shields. Oil changes on 996s are the easiest I have ever done. If you have the budget, get the LN Engineering spin on filter adapter as well.

yaz996

FCP has a kit that includes all the necessary hardware:

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/por...ru-996ignclkt1

All of the items from that kit can be purchased individually as well, but I'd suggest finding an alternative to spending $45 on washers.

Joel987

Make sure you get a large, I mean large, capacity oil drain pan. You don't want to fill up an 8qt container and still have a quart or more to go.

ssherman68

Yup. I saw that one and the $45 washers scared me off. I emailed Pelican after that.

ssherman68

Is 6mm the thickness of the washer or the diameter? If it's the diameter, how thick do they need to be? Is there enough bolt left over to use the newer washer?

jobyt

Thickness. Bolt is either a M5 or M6 (if I recall correctly) so the I.D. should be a little over 5mm to a little over 6mm. I can't remember if I changed the bolts, I may have used some longer M5s that I had laying around. I'll be able to take a look Thursday and post a pic.

ssherman68

OK. Thank you. This is my first time and don't even know what that assembly looks like yet. I'm going to do some searching to see if I can find a picture.