I went to change my plugs today and wouldn't you know the plug-well right beneath the throttle body was so full of dirt and other debris that I couldn't even get my socket to grab the plug! I mean it was caked hard in there. I shined a light in and could see where it was like cement around the plug.

For a moment I got scared that someone had a plug blow out of the head and that they had jb welded a plug in. I got a wire coat hanger, cut it, and began poking around at the "cement". I then blew it out with some compressed air (can) and blew a big load of sand all over the engine bay. I then proceeded to suck up what I could with my shop-vac, but there was still so much compacted around the plug I couldn't get a grip on it.

Finally out of desperation I went into the back yard and grabbed my garden hose, set my nozzle to its most powerful blast setting and stuck it down into the plug hole and let 'er rip. That finally did it. Sure I had to make a custom nozzle for my shop vac to suck up the water from the (relatively)tiny plug-well, but in the end it worked.

So there you go, if you need to get some caked-up dirt out of a plug-well, just blast it with your garden hose, lol.

 

This can be very risky, as can blowing compressed air in there.

 

well I mean with the plug intact it should be fine, as long as you're not using really crazy pressures.

 

Most of my mine were like that a few months back when I changed my plugs at 75K. I couldnt believe that much caked up dirt was in the wells. I just took my shop vac and reversed the flow to blow and cleaned the hell out of them before I changed them.

 

and trust me five years ago I would have taken pictures, asked for help on forums, and wasted a whole week trying to figure out how to remove a little dirt from there, but I'm not nearly as squeamish about things dealing with cars as I used to be

 

wish my shop vac did that, it was a $20 wal-mart special so it doesn't. unfortunately my little can of compressed air wasn't enough either, especially since I'd lost the little straw, with that I might have been able to blow the debris clear.