Originally Posted by Diesel_pusher

By now, everyone knows about the glowplug removal tools. OTC 6005A. available on Ebay very reasonably. But what do you do IF the heat swollen tip breaks off in there during removal???
I dont know anyone likes to pull a head for fun. I'd rather be fishing...
While researching this problem prior to my engine rebuild, I ran across a website in Canada that had a great idea that avoids the hassle and expense of head removal. Two things are needed. High pressure air and a good shopvac...not to mention the requisite wrenches.
Remove the ruined glowplug completely and curse it thoroughly. Then, remove the INJECTOR too. Bar the engine over until the offending cylinder's piston is at TDC. You dont want the broken glowplug tip to drop down into the cylinder. Keeping the pistion TDC keeps the broken tip inside the cylinder head area that the glowplug and injector resides-in, in most IDI engines. Attach one of those cheapie Harbor Freight air guns item #42939 or #3962 or similar to your air hose an stick it INTO the glowplug oriface. Try not to damage the threads!!! Insert the shopvac's nozzel into the now vaccant injector oriface. The shop vac alone wont remove the broken tip because it will simply create a vaccum in there but the High pressure air will shoot the broken glowplug pieces around and around the cylinder until the shopvac grabs them up and out the injector oriface. Its the combination of the high pressure air into the cylinder and the vaccum out of the cylinder that does the trick. A clean shopvac is necessary to see you got all the pieces.
Same guy has a diagram for bypassing the EVIL glowplug controller that is the bane of older 6.9 and 7.3 diesels if anyones interested??? I wired my glowplugs up as per his instrutions and it NEVER fails to start no matter how cold the temp and I dont burn glowplugs up anymore either.
I hope this has been helpful...dp