I wanted to tune up my 1985 Z28 since it still has all the original plugs wires etc, (car has 29K original miles).

When I opened the hood I could not see any reasonable way to get to the plugs especially the rear plugs.

Do you need to get them from under the car on a lift?

Thanks.

 

some of em are easier to get from under the car or through the wheel wells.. no lift nessicary.

 

Get headers!

 

headers dont help. Do you have a/c and a smog pump? you cant do anything on the passenger side of the engine bay with the smog pump there, if you dont have to pass a visual emissions test then delete that.

even still yes its easiest to put the car up on jack stands and do plugs 6 and 8 from underneath. Just be glad you dont have a 4th gen

 

You can get to the front stuff on the passenger side easy enough and the drivers side is cake. To get to the plugs further back on the passenger side, dropping the Y-pipe from the exhaust manifold should give you clearance from underneath. If you still don't have room, you might even have to pull the starter though if you have small hands you might be able to pull it off. My solution was to spend $1200 on headers and new heads with angled spark plugs lol...and even still it's hard to get to the last set.

 

I thought it was easier with the headers in... but you still have to use some tricks to get to them.

 

I've seen a lot of posts on this forum about how much of a PITA it is to do the plugs on these cars.
Is my car vastly different from yours? I have headers yes, but still! I mean I can do my plugs in about 10 minutes, if I stop to regap the new ones. I use a 5/8" wrench, and a spark plug socket with a 3/4" wrench to turn it, sometimes.
It's just so easy, I have no idea what you guys are talking about...?? Ok, some 4cyl FWD imports are easier, but this is a lot easier than a ford supercoupe!

 

I can get to most on my car from the top, but the rest I find it easier to drive up on ramps and get to them from underneath.

 

I used to have to do #6 and #8 from under the car but now I have AFR angle plug heads and Slp headers and can do them all from up top with the help of a shortened 5/8" sparkplug socket from Snap-On and 5/8"ratchet wrench. No more getting up on ramps and getting dirt in my eyes.

 

I'm not sure where Markham is (I searched and found a city in Canada and one near Chicago) but both the United States and Canada have emissions laws that forbid the removal of stock emissions devices, regardless of if your area does testing or not.

To the original poster, as everyone else has said, the driver's side is pretty easy, but the passenger side is tougher. You can remove the air diverter assembly (the black plastic box on the passenger side) with a 10mm wrench on its two bolts, and swing it out of the way to get at the plugs. Then put it back when you're done. The #6 and #8 are easier from underneath but can be done from the top if you have small hands.

 

I do my '86 from the top. Don't forget that most spark plug sockets have flats on them for a reason.

My "small hands" get in there, no problem:

 

Well put its easy to do the spark plugs. The plugs on my 95 Grand Am are a bi@#h.

 

markham ontario

yes they do emissions testing, but no visual, and my car is so far off from passing a sniffer that i would just pay 200+ bucks for an illegal one every few years. Its a 380 dollar fine if you get caught by the mto guys for a piece of equipment missing but **** if i care. Not to mention a healthy car will pass the sniffer with no air anyways.

its the fact that i have no egr or cats that makes a bigger difference lol

but i moved to alberta this year because i got sick of all of that, and now i dont have to care anymore

 

just get the back 2 plugs on both sides (near firewall) from under the car . it will save your knuckles and you wont need anything but a socket and ratchet . you will only need to get the car high enough to get under it .


some on here will say it is super easy but ill bet they dont have AC or exhaust tubes in the way . these cars are still easier than a lot of v6 FWD cars . my cutlass i have to remove motor mounts and use ratchet straps to pull the motor forward or else i would freak out ..

 

Lift car
Put spark plug socket on spark plug
Get flex head ratcheting wrench that goes over socket or use a combination of flexes and extensions to do it.

Personally, I don't see why you'd have to remove one single thing to get to a spark plug on a 3rdgen with factory exhaust. Headers I can see needing a special socket though for some models.

 

just to show how much of a PITA it is to change plugs on our cars i think SLP has made a special spark plug socket for F bodies even though its still very posible to do without

 

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'Nuf said.

(For now. I'll be watching. . .)

 

What happened to the tech article on this subject? I thought we had one.

 

last time i tried my plugs i couldn't go through the wheel well so i just jam my arms down there and undo it little by little

 

Wanna hear something funny that attests to how hard these plugs are to get out and how lazy some people are? When I pulled my 305 TPI out to put in the 350, there were six Autolite plugs in and two Delco plugs ... you guessed it ... the two on the rear passenger side. Might have even been the stock plugs!

 

Wow thats horrible!

But when i did mine i have a buddy with a lift and we did them all with in an hour. I had everthing on it to. But if you can get someones lift do it b/c it is a hole lot easyer.
kevin

 

i tried it on a lift but i found it easier to do it from the top

 

Maybe from an antique collector! LOL

 

My car has headers and a regular 5/8 spark plug socket will not fit behind them. What I did was take the socket and cut off about 1/4 of the socket with a cutting wheel, and I use an open end box wrench on the other side to loosen and tighten them. Without that socket it would be impossible to get the plugs out, just not enough clearance. Alternatively I believe you can get an LS1 socket that is pretty much the same thing that I did with mine, but they are about 20 bucks

 

You could always just bring your car to a shop and let the pro's do it. Only thing with that is you gotta write the check for a couple hours labor.

 

theres always a solution lol but isnt a plug job only like.4 or .5 hrs by the book though?