CHANGED: C4 HDi non start.. Help or advice needed....

[Dommo]

Could a strong magnet work? We took apart an old computer hard drive and there's a very strong magnet inside, a neodymium magnet. If you put that over the glow plug hole that would give you the best chance of pulling it out without removing the head I'd imagine, I figured it's worth trying!

[citroenxm]

No dommo not a cat in hells chance they are tight hence them breaking...

Ive read the sugestions so far but firstly gonna soak them in the egr cleaner then spin the engine over see what happens then...

[Dommo]

Fair one, it was definitely a 'clutching at straws' idea.

[isisalar]

Would something like this be of any help?
:-http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... tAodCFIArQ
Got me out of trouble a few times.
Cheers
Paul

[Old-Guy]

No dommo not a cat in hells chance they are tight hence them breaking...

Ive read the sugestions so far but firstly gonna soak them in the egr cleaner then spin the engine over see what happens then...

That has to be worth a try (or two) if the tips are stuck in the hole.

[citroenxm]

I cannot elabarate how damm tight these tips are in there!! There really is NO chance any magnet would move them..

[Sl4yer]

Sounds like the same failure as the ones on our C3 had. It's head off time I'm afraid.

James

[Stewart(oily)]

How about dissecting one of these old glowplugs at the point that the offender snapped ?
I would also be soaking the hole with EGR cleaner daily, then I might make a dummy plug to go down the injector hole, a rubber bung with a hole in it, compressor, blow gun, Voila ! 120 PSI pushing it outwards, convenient rags or loaves of bread strategically placed, you need to catch the bits but with nett flow outwards a careful man might even poke it with something
Wear eye protection.
If that fails then make it fall in and retrieve it with a magnet on a stick down the injector hole, bursts of compressed air down the now unblocked glowplug hole should move the broken bits about to let the magnet do its stuff, piston near the top of its stroke preferably.

[RichardW]

Could you make a drift out of one of the not broken plugs, or by turning down a bolt with the correct thread, which you could then screw in to push the bust bit out?

Taking the head off might in fact be the easier option in the long run, but only if the injectors will come out My neighbour has got a Xsara Pic 1.6 HDi with failed plugs the garage can't remove - it's very rough and smoky on start up!!

Wheeler - do you know if you can do the plugs on a C4 Picasso 1.6 with the engine in situ (notwithstanding this sort of shennanigans of course....!)? Ours has a permanent fault recorded for glowplugs so I assume at least one is away. Not yet affecting its ability to regen the DPF, but I suppose it might one day....

[Eddie Nuff]

The problem with blasting/forcing/probing it into the engine is the assumption that all will go well. If all doesn't go well then taking the head off would have been so much easier in the first place.

[wheeler]

The problem with knocking it inwards & trying to retrieve through the injector hole is how do you know you get everything out ? A few bits could break off that you don't get & cause even more damage on start up. You would really need a bore scope down there to confirm.

Wheeler - do you know if you can do the plugs on a C4 Picasso 1.6 with the engine in situ (notwithstanding this sort of shennanigans of course....!)? Ours has a permanent fault recorded for glowplugs so I assume at least one is away. Not yet affecting its ability to regen the DPF, but I suppose it might one day....

Yes you can, you pretty much change them blindly though & a bit of help from a mirror.