Yesterday, I was changing my spark plugs, as the old ones were corroded. 5/6 went without problems. Unfortunately, the 6th, the one closest to the driver, shattered part of the way through removal. I stopped ratcheting it, left the spark plug in the hole, and began to remove the porcelain. I used a combination of a homebrew vacuum cleaner attatchment, and a dowel with duct tape on it to remove most of the pieces, but there are still some in the hole. Any ideas on how to get the rest out before I remove the plug? I thought about blowing a can of compressed air into the hole, but I'm afraid of blowing the pieces into the engine or deeper down into the hole. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

 

How big are the pieces we're talking about here?

Are we talking about stuff too big for the vacuum or porcelain dust?

 

Had this happen a while back on a ford truck I was working on..
just replace the rest of the plugs so that you don't drop anything in them, then use compressed air to blow the rest of the broken stuff out.
if they're too big to get out, just use your sprk plug socket, extension, and possibly a small hammer.

tap the socket down into the hole and it will continue to break the porcelain into tiny bits.. once it's small enough to easily blow away, COVER YOUR EYES!!!!! and use some compressed air to just blow it out. as long as the plugs are in the engine and your air filter is on, you can't do any damage to the engine.

then just finish removing and replacing the plug as usual.

 

I know you made an attachment for your vacuum, but I've been doing some work on my car and to clean out different areas and openings after I've scraped gaskets and such I bought a kit of attachments for the shopvac. It includes a tapered adaptor to taper down to several attachments about 1/2 inch in diameter. There's a straight tube, a 45 degree bent tube and such that enable me to stick the tube down into the different wells and tight places on the engine and suck up everything. It works quite well. This is an option also.