Spray bar plug replacement
 

OK, I should of just threaded the hole and use a threaded plug, but I didn't. Tapping the cam tower spray bar plugs back in was more like hammering them in. I had to hammer them pretty dam hard with a 1/4" punch just to get close to flush, the first began to mushroom, the second didn't mushroom but still needed some serious beating to get down. I did get them both counter sunk but not by much, not the 0.3mm the book states. Should these be that hard to get down? I used permatex aviation to seal them.

Mine required a lot of force to get them in. Sounds pretty much the procedure as I did with mine. Looking back it might have been good to heat the cam tower with a torch before hammering the plugs in.

Agree that heating and freezing the plugs would probably cause less headache. I'm going to be turning down a couple plugs for my cam tower here in the next week or two. if you're thinking about pulling them then let me know if you need some and i'll make a couple extra.

There in place now so I'm good with them.

ETA: thanks for the offer.

So how did you pull them?

This is sorta low-tech - but I hunted for an appropriately-sized sheetmetal screw on my bench. I held it up to a new freeze plug to see how deep I could go, and marked the depth of the plug on the sheetmetal screw.

Then I center-punched the existing plug in the cam housing. After center-punching I drilled a guide hole, and threaded in the screw (stopping when I got to my previously-set sharpie mark) . Lacking a slide-hammer, I locked a big pair of vice-grips to the head of the screw. Then I hammered on the 'elbow' of the vice-grips to knock the screw and plug out. Very easy.

I actually did this to an engine on the stand - if you knock out the rear plugs, it is possible to remove the spray bars and clean out the cam housing. Complete removal was not necessary.

Drill them out, then I screwed the bolt in and used the top nut to extract the plug.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1270783887.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1270783921.jpg

+1 for what Michael did. Though I used a socket instead of the big nut he used. Same principle.

Though next time I may just use my slide hammer. Drill, screw, slide out. Instead of drill, tap, reverse press out. Might save a few minutes.

Though my plan is to use 1/8" aluminum pipe plugs, at least in one end, to make all this easier. Guess that would be the flywheel end, hadn't thought of that until Dave mentioned it. Though I am not sure when I would want to pull the spray bars short of a full rebuild, as in refreshing rod and main bearings, etc.