Hi folks, Just wanted to get some wisdom from the collective on this. My 996BP is in having its belt service, and the technician found that the vertical cylinder head's plug was fouled. On further inspection he noticed some damage to the cylinder head itself, which he's attributed to an incorrectly tightened plug which has then come loose and caused the damage. Could also suffer from a lack of compression as well due to a poor seal. I'll post a photo shortly, but as you can imagine a new cylinder head ain't cheap, and I was wondering if replacement is the only option? Thanks! Scott
timesert/helicoil insert is probably best option and if really damaged then :- Spark Plug Threads Renewal | Ducati Forum
Thanks Chris - that certainly looks like a possible option! This is the photo I've got back showing the damage. I would hope that would be something that BLR can deal with...
hard to see what's happened Scott - is part of plug still in there? First step if all debris is removed is to at least try and chase the thread that's left with a tap as you can get by with slightly less thread intact than std as long as plug isn't 'sloppy' when close to tightening fully/can be fully tightened without stripping remainder of thread.
I haven't seen the head myself unfortunately so can't answer that one. I think the arrow is pointing to a chunk that's actually missing from the head. I have just been on to BLR Engineering though and it's bread & butter stuff for them so for the sake of £60 I think it's worth getting the brass plug put in there. Thanks again!
If they can fix it properly for £60 then get them to do it - but I'd want to be 100% certain that no debris got into the cylinder, it's a deep & narrow hole to be working in. If it were mine I'd take the head off to fix it just to be sure no crap went in, and just the gaskets would cost more than £60...
Sorry I haven't reported back on this - BRM did a smashing job on the head, it's all reinstalled (had the dealers make sure there was no junk in the cylinder). A huge thanks to Chris for pointing me in the direction of BRM!
