Joe,
Your lucky. On my 1985 Toyota Van I can only "see" one of my spark plugs.
The other three I have to do by feel. You see its a mid engine. Both
front seats are on top of the engine compartment. The drivers seat pivots
up to expose about 1/4 of the engine, the plugs are on the other side. To
access them you have to remove a small panel under the carpet behind the
passenger seat. Of coarse you can always get better access by removing the
shifter, emergency brake, pass seat belt, pass seat, and about 15 bolts.
Then a larger panel below the pass seat will come off for good access to
the pass side of the engine. Good is a relative thing.
This van has been a super TSV and very reliable (196,000 miles), But I
really dread working on it. For example, now it has a problem of leaking
radiator fluid out the tail pipe. Sounds like a bad head gasket. But
there is no way I am going to even try to replace a head gasket on this
van. I'll send it to the junk yard first. On the spitfire I would just
dive in and go for it.
David Gates
Hawaii
At 08:25 AM 5/30/99 -0700, you wrote:
>
>Hey Gang,
>Yesterday, my Chevy Blazer passed the 200,000 mile mark in its struggle
>to deliver a million miles of reliable service. To commemorate the
>occasion, I decided to treat it to a new set of plugs, distributor cap,
>rotor and oil change.
>
>Needless to say, it was a real awakening. The plugs are wedged in among
>steering shaft, fender wells and other parts making it perfectly obvious
>that the engineers at GM were concerned about the well being of the
>dealer service departments! I ended up extracting the number 5 plug by
>inserting the socket using a long extension through the rubber flap at
>the top inside of the fender well.
>
>The project took 2 hours and would have been completed on my Spit in
>less than 15 minutes. But thankfully, I shouldn't have to do that again
>for a long time. I just hope that there is enough left in the old girl
>to tow Huxley down to the desert without any trouble.
>
>Wish me luck!
>
>Joe
>--
>"If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort."
> -- Dave Weinbaum in National Enquirer
>
>
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