Hello All:
The incident herein intrigued me and has Imperial implications but
the experience was not wholly Imperial. The long and short of
it--what about a spark plug makes it a wearing part?
My one year old lawnmower cut out while mowing the grass the tenth
time this season. It would start once every hundred or so pulls but
run for only a minute or so and badly at that. I cleaned the air
filter to pristine. I tore the carb apart and cleaned it up although
I was doubting old gas as a contributor since we have run the thing
so much this year. The thing would not even start reliably on
starting fluid. I tried it without the air cleaner to no avail. I
cleaned the spark plug with carb cleaner followed by brake cleaner
after filing the electrode with a teeny file and cleaning up the
other side with fine sandpaper. I did not check the gap since I did
not know what was correct and believed this could not be gap related
since it ran some of the time. Nothing worked. I deduced that it
had to be either a loose ground owing to the silly safety cutout or a
bad magneto which is highly unlikely given its age. With Moron's
assistance a test for spark was devised in which we would ground the
plug and try to start it in a dark garage--if you want to amuse
yourself just try holding a mower still enough to check for spark
while pull starting it. Prior to making that drastic and potentially
dangerous test, I decided to replace the plug and learned the correct
gap in the process. The mower starts first time every time.
Here is the question: Isn't a plug nothing more than a wire with a
hole in it through which electrons jump thereby causing the necessary
spark? What can possibly wear out on one? I dutifully replace my
plugs in my cars as recommended but always feel like a sucker doing
it and have never experienced any change in performance after having
done so. This mower experience has opened my eyes though-- I wonder
if there are a few Imperials out there pronounced DOA that are
suffering from nothing more than a sick spark plug or two.
Dick--what the heck should I know here? I hate it when the solution
to a problem is not chemical in nature--most solutions are!
Let the snickering begin....
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