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I finally got my new to me Sonex home this week, which was a 5 month process (thanks COVID). I pulled the top #2 spark plug out last night and the electrode was very eroded, almost to a point, but color-wise looked good. So no problem changing that plug, so moved on to the others and so far the next two have been a real challenge to remove, slowly working the plugs back and forth to loosen them. The second one stripped the threads and the next pulled the existing time-sert out a quarter inch. From what I have researched you can use a screw extractor to pull out the old time-sert and install new. Has anyone done that successfully? Thanks.

The way the time-sert lock in place is by expanding the bottom threads, so if you work one or I'd think that you damage the threads in the aluminum enough that a new one won't lock. I seem to recall that they make oversize ones for this purpose, though.

I'll post some photos to the Facebook group (that I way I don't have to resize). I noticed today that the one plug pretty cleanly came out with the time-sert attached to the plug.

After my Timesert came out with the plug, I made a collar to fit on an old plug to use when installing the Timesert. The collar allows only the bottom half of the spark plug treads to engage the Timesert ; that way I can remove the plug without pulling the Timesert again. Using this modified plug, I can put some torque on the Timesert when installing it. I also used some high temperature Loctite. I think getting the Timesert in tight helps with heat transfer too.

JerryCPP wrote:After my Timesert came out with the plug, I made a collar to fit on an old plug to use when installing the Timesert. The collar allows only the bottom half of the spark plug treads to engage the Timesert ; that way I can remove the plug without pulling the Timesert again. Using this modified plug, I can put some torque on the Timesert when installing it. I also used some high temperature Loctite. I think getting the Timesert in tight helps with heat transfer too.

Thanks for the info, I'm intrigued, would you happen to have a photo of your setup?

I have no idea how to post a photo. You can email me at jloeffelbeinatjunodotcom and I"ll send one. The only reason I made a sleeve is because I didn't have an old short-reach 12mm plug, which I'm sure would have worked as well.