broken glow plug tips

Paul Oneill said:

hi all my wife has mini cooper d w16 1.6 hdi psa 2008 model, i have tried to change glow plugs but 2 have snapped at the tips and the other 2 will also break if pushed, i used plus gas for a week and engine was hot but to no avail.
has anyone on here tried the method of pushing broken tips in and extracting through injector hole by way of a wire and tiny magnet, im really not wanting to remove the head if at all possible.
thanks

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HO thats no good i have done that a few times you could on the other ones try a impact gun and on low to mid settings sometime they come out, as for removing whats left they are a proper bugger there is a special tool for it lnk below there are cheaper ones but i have try'd them and very rarely will they drill straight,, one good tip is go to hardware store buy DRAPER EXPERT DRILL BITS i bought a set a while ago and they are border line un snap-able and dont go blunt, ie better drill bits than glow plug removal tools are
in all honestly i have had to remove more heads than not with those silly thin glow plugs,, also when finally got them sorted add so heat resistance grease to threads and only tighten them to around 6nm

another way that works sometimes is weld a bigger nut to the bit that sticks out and the head from the weld sometimes releases them

hi mike thanks for your reply, its the electrodes thats the problem ,must be very swollen, the body of the plugs are coming out and leaving tips its a bloody nightmare.had a look at those tools and heard not so good, 50/50 chance of removing.
saw a couple of vids where they were pushed in and extracted with magnet through injector hole, was hoping someone had positive experience of this method

could try these link below ie drill middle out enough so these can grip it
or
or find somewhere with spark eroder tool

Hi did u have any look with this . Just had one of the tips snapped as I pulled the plug out . Let me know if you won