Thread: Read my plug

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I've let my son use my truck for about 5 years, I keep the insurance on it and do some of the repairs and change oil. I can use it anytime I want, it's worked out good for both of us. Well to keep this short he had his hired man do some work on it and change the plugs which were really bad. It ran pretty good until about a month ago. No power, shaking all over the place and missing. A mechanic to us to put a new fuel filter on it... didn't help. So today I thought I'm either going to fix it or junk it. I pulled each plug, checked the gap, started it up without the plug wire attached to see if that cylinder was firing. I started with the rear one #6..... gap was at .021 and was in finger tight only, reset to .044. The rest of them were again only finger tight but had the correct gap EXCEPT for #1.
#1 was quite tight and really tough to get out because of a bracket over the top of it. Pull the plug, and ???????????????? no end on it. His cotton picken blankety blank hired man never changed #1 It takes quite a bit to tick me off but I sure was ticked off today.
I put a new plug it it and now it purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs like a kitten

Ahhh yes, the hired man. My father in law had a good business buying and re-selling 55 gallon drums of chemicals. He would buy them from New York, remove all the identifying marks on the drums and resell them across town. He became ill and was hospitalized, so his hired man was left with the task of un-identifying the drums. Soooo, instead of removing all markings, he spray painted over them. Well, the gent across town simply used paint solvent to remove the fresh paint and presto, he had the name and address of the New York supplier. Sad story.

I have seen that a lot in the garage business. Also had a Ford with a drivability problem that had just came from a quicky tune franchise. They hadn't gapped any of the plugs and it was setting a pip (profile ignition pickup) code.
I dropped a spark plug doing a V8 Monza tune up, ironically the front left one that hadn't been changed before. After the tune it had a rough running issue. I finally found it on the scope. I couldn't see the crack but it must have cracked the insulator on that plug when I dropped it. I have never put a dropped plug in a car since then and won't accept a box that show any sign of having been dropped.
There's lots of ways to screw up a plug swap. including sloppy work. Unacceptable. If that's how he does his work I would send him down the road.

What do you suppose happened to the tip? Hope there aren't any fragments in #1 cylinder! I suppose if it wore down over time, it would be ok?
Not suprised about the hired help either! I remember my mom taking her car in for an oil change, and it coming back leaking oil. The jerks used an air wratchet set to high on the oil plug, and then had the audacity to say it was leaking before she took it in. Same with my wife, she took our car in for a flat tire repair, and they convinced her it needed an alignment, but only did the front end(it was a four wheel steering Honda prelude!) They also told her it needed brakes, thank god she didn't authorize that, since they were less than a year old and brand new! Some mechanics are unscupulous, yet some are great, once found, friends for life!

Uhhhh, that looks like a grenade job on 'ol number one. The frags eventually make their way out but not without leaving some marks in general. But if she's running good count your blessings and go with it.

I might be inclined to roll #1 up to TDC and put some vacuum at the plug port to make sure no big frags are left.

Kitz

I showed the plug to my son today, he just shook his head and said "I didn't think it would be that bad". He also was wondering what happened to the pieces.
I had it on TDC and the piston was really wet, I'm hoping the pieces got washed out by themselves.
This hired man had the head off and took it in to have it milled and put it all back together and it ran OK, funny he didn't replace the plug before he put the bracket back on. Oh, another thing, after he got done the "Check Engine" light comes on after a few miles, I'm thinking it's from a vacuum line that didn't get put on.