Sum1Kool

Hey guys,

I'm a proud owner of a 2000 s2000. Picked it up about 2 weeks ago. i was giving the car a tune up and was going to change the spark plugs. I went and took off two bolts of the spark plug cover, they were really hard to take off but they came off... but the other two didn't give in, and i think they're stripped, any ideas on what to do to take them off? (btw, the motor was cold, so no chances of the aluminum expanding due to a hot motor.)

TIA

synapse

take a hammer, not a mallet and tap those bolts from the head straight down, to shock the threads loose. Then turn

Sum1Kool

Alright, will try that tonight. Thank you.

Gloffer

Those are steel allen bolts that are treaded into the aluminum valve cover. If they've never been removed than there's probably some galvanic corrosion that you have to overcome to get the bolts out. Tapping down on them vertically may help. But you should get a properly sized socket allen wrench (5 mm) that will fit on a ratchet or breaker bar. Insert the socket allen into the bolt and tap the ratchet handle with a hammer to break the bolt loose.

You could use a regular allen wrench, but I think you can develop a more consistent torque to break the bolts loose with the socket allen. When you reinstall the allens but a light layer of anti-seize on the bolt threads to prevent this from happening again.

Good luck. and tap carefully you don't want to break those bolts off in the valve cover, that's a much harder problem to overcome.

AusS2000

The secret is to use shock rather than slow torque. But once you've rounded them out it's probably too late.

Happened to me in 2000. My car was only a few weeks old. I ended up drilling the head off and replacing the bolts. Very scarey for a new car.

They've been on and off many times since.