Monday, May 26, 2008

All fouled up... and how to reinstall the spark plugs once you've cleaned them up

This was the worst one.... and likely wasn't lighting off the cylinder, last week when I wanted to go for a spin, but couldn't due to a couple of cylinders not firing. It was trouble in paradise.
A couple close ups to show how bad it can get. When I drove the hot rod in April it ran fine, but this is evidence that there is a lot if oil getting past the valve guides or the piston rings. 6 and 1/2 years worth to make it this way, so I'm not really irritated about it, I knew the engine had a lot of slop and was buring a lot of oil.... big deal, it's been a long time since it's been rebuilt.

Here is super tool number 2, a foot long piece of windshield washer hose that is perfectly sized to stick on the nipple end of a spark plug so you can (as demonstrated below) use the hose as an extra long, extra small hand to guide the spark plug and get the threads to engage, when the area is too small for your forearm and hand to get in place to reinsert the spark plug in the head. Super tool number one is cash, to pay someone else to fix it... those of us without tool number one, use the next best tool at hand to get the job done.