[s-cars] Dodging the bullet; a short story

[djdawson2 at aol.com]

So... Had to do a couple of weeks work in the LA area, and I figured it was as good an excuse as any to take yet another road trip in the S.  The trip from CO to CA went great... some fun fast driving, and even a bit of a snowstorm in UT.
 
I worked my first week, and decided that over the weekend, I'd go up to the bay area to take a looksy at a pretty 850i 6 speed that I'd been watching.  So I left LA after lunch on Friday, and headed north on "the" 101.  (Important to note that in CA, highways aren't called I-5, or state route 101... they are called "the" 405, or "the" 215... always thought that was funny).  About 200 miles north of LA, the car began to misfire on occasion.  Hmm... I think I'll blow it off 'til I get there.  Big mistake.  About 30 miles later, the cylinder dropped out completely.  I stopped, and popped the hood.  After opening the hood, I was listening to what sounded like major head issues... akin to that of a broken valve spring, and a potential valve-hitting-head type noise.  I unplugged injectors, and found #4 to be the culprit.  It sounded really bad.  I decided to get back in the car, and drive slowly up to the next exit.
 
I parked at an Osh's store (kind of like a Home Depot) and borrowed a phone book.  For about the 3rd time in my life, I was calling shops to see if anyone would work on my car.  Since it was 3:30pm on a Friday, the answers (of no less than 20 shops in the San Luis Obispo area, and north) were a resounding "no."
 
Next call... U-Haul... yep, I'd like one 14ft truck and a car trailer... one way to Denver.  $1445?  Sounds great... can you deliver this stuff to me?  2 hours?  I'll be here.  While I'm waiting, I decide to call up Javad and see what he's doing for the weekend.  Turns out he's hauling a trailer down to LA in a couple of hours... but has to haul a car back, and wouldn't be able to work on my car over the weekend.
 
Curiosity, and 2 hours to kill gets me thinking...  So I pull the coil cover, and remove the #4 plug.  Huh??  The spark plug is missing its ENTIRE center post... the whole thing, ceramic, metal and all.  Well, I guess that explains the noise and the miss.  So I decide to pull the valve cover as well, just to check the springs.  Springs check out fine.  So, I figure what the heck... and throw a good spark plug in there, and fire it up.  Now it's firing on all cylinders, but still sounds very bad.  At this point I'm assessing potential costs:
Truck and trailer  $1445
Gas to CO           $250
Flight back to LA  $300 (last minute and all)
 
Looks like $2000.  I decide the engine is barely worth $2k... and so I risk it.  I figure the engine noise is the spark plug tip in the combustion chamber.  The damage is probably done the the soft head material... so what do I really have at stake?  So I let it sit there and idle.  10 minutes of idling, and the noise is 100% gone.  I hop in the car, and pull out onto the 101, headed south.  I decide I will "limp" back to LA (hopefully) and figure out what to do later.  The cruise back to LA is entirely uneventful.  Once in LA, I pull the #4 plug again, to see if it got damaged by the remaining shrapnel.  Nothing.
 
Feeling reassured, I continue south to Oceanside... and spend the night in a hotel on the shore.  I get up in the morning, and proceed to drive to Lake Havasu... why not, all seems fine now.  After some desert blasting... another miss begins.  I pull off, and remove the #4 plug again.  To my amazement, the post on this plug is starting to drop out.  The hooked electrode is pointing directly into the "cone" of the post, rather the the little pointed tip.  What is going on with these plugs?  I replace it with yet another plug, and continue to Havasu.
 
Tonight, I returned to LA... no more failures... yet.  I've put a total of over 1000 miles on the engine since this strange disaster, and it is acting fine.  At the end of this week, I'll try and return to CO.
 
Happy... since I didn't blow the $2k to get the car home on a trailer.  But I must say that I'm looking forward to popping the head to see what the chamber looks like.
 
That's it for now...  Gotta find a different type of spark plugs.
 
Dave