Can I clean my Spark Plugs? Brake, Carb cleaner? or wire brush?
Ive got a 02 altima 2.5L 124Kmiles... Can I clean them with brake cleaner? Carb cleaner? Wire brush? I did clean them with a small wire brush...but didnt took off all the dirt...should I use brake or carb cleanr instead? Thanks!
CLEAN SPARK PLUGS soaked in Thinner?
Hello guys, I want to know if you soak spark plugs on lacquer thinner will make them go bad? Im planning on soaking NGK BKR5EGP spark plugs on thinner for 2 hours, then brushing them with a small wire brush and toothbrush, then letting them dry facing down under the sun. Ive heard cleaning spark plugs with a sand blaster is bad. Do spark plugs deteriorate when soaked in chemicals like carb cleaner, brake cleaner, thinner or any other automotive cleaner? Another quick question: how can I TEST PRECISELY if a spark plug is making spark?, plugs have the correct gap The picture is from the bkr5egp ngk plugs on my engine, ARE THEY FIRING OK? Car: 1993 Nissan Quest VG30E engine. thanks for your time! Have a nice day!
How can I make a car Vacuum Cleaner work on a normal plug?
I have a B&D Auto DustBuster 12V that a friend gave me since he got a new powerful car cleaner and I am trying to make it work on a normal house plug. I bought some Car to plug transformers but sadly they only are 500mah and 600mah and the vacuum probably needs 1000 (its 12,5w) and the vacuum hardly even pulls anything. I tried to use 2 different ac/dc adapters i got form my hard drives that are 12V and 2000mah but it does not even start, or more like it starts for a split of second and stops continuously. Sadly there are no 2000mah Car AC/DC adapters so I am not sure what to do. Any suggestions?
What are the best way to clean a spark plug?
I put the screw/top end in the vice, electrode up, and using a Bernz 8000 torch with mapp gas, heat the metal, all of it, including the washer, cherry red and let it cool slowly. It leaves the plug spotless, re-gap it and it always works perfectly.Using one of the spark plug sandblasters is dangerous, because you can not be sure all the sand is all removed. One grain of sand can do serious damage to an engine.
Should I choose cold or hot spark plugs?
this is one of those areas that people just dont seem to understand…the heat of a plug has nothing to do with the flame in the cylinder. they dont make an engine run any hotter or colder than it otherwise would.all it signifies is how hot the plug itself gets in operation.a COLD plug suits a HOT engine. which is why you see more and more new vehicles with high numbered plugs, such as ngk **11** or **13**, as they run lean, and hot.a HOT plug suits a COLD engine… which is why lawnmowers use low number plugs, using ngk again… numbers such as **5** or **7**.a hot plug holds heat, retains it. it gets hot. which is good for an engine that runs slowly, or a twostroke that has to burn oil off its insulator and electrodes. if the engine is tuned correctly but plugs come out dark brown to black…get a hotter plug. if its a generator that spends most of its life putting away at 3000rpm…get the hotter plug.once the electrode starts melting and the insulator comes out bone white or even blistered…its TOO hot. (or, as ive found with some engine/plug combos, you get seriously bad pre-ignition…)with the exact right plug heat range, and a perfect tune, the plug comes out looking virtually “as new”. white, or just a shade of tan.if the engine is used at full throttle, all day long, in tropical heat… get a cold plug.you will usually find manufacturers list two, sometimes three plugs as suitable, with a small note saying that the “8 is suitable for inner city use” and the “9 or 10 is more suited to racing or high load use”
How do you remove the oil from the spark plug well due to a leaking valve cover?
I am assuming your typing that you have an overhead coil over sparkplug here, if this is indeed the case, do not allow the oil that could have foreign matter or an abrasive to drain into the sparkplug port, you will score the entire chamber leaving you with scores up and down the cylinder wall, I take a long rag soaked with brake cleaner or carb cleaner at the end of a screw driver and press it into the hole and twist the rag, then remove the rag. Do not remove the plug, you feel around it, if you break the plug, just remove it with the socket, if you do this without the plug your at your own risk here. Blasting it out will only get oil in your face or everywhere. Good Luck.
Lacquer Thinner for CLEANING PLUGS?
all those look like they're burning just fine save #5. and from what i see, it's not all that bad either. could easily be just the lighting. "how can I TEST PRECISELY if a spark plug is making spark?" by inspection or arc test. but they ARE all firing. good there. conclusion can be made that all plugs are good. no oil contamination from say leaky valve guide seals. no over heating. no fuel foul. *maybe*, and that's a big *maybe* the combustion pressures in #5 might be a little low or the #5 injector is a little dirty/restricted. easily have been some corrosion on the #5 electrode in the distributor(app). but that's prolly the bad lighting that i see in the pic. prolly not the case. just hit 'em with a wire brush and check gap. unless they have oil deposits down in the well of the ceramic. and i don't see any of that. even so, i've never felt the need to soak 'em. iffin they need that kind of maint/clean up, i simply replace them and fine out what burning issues i have. as anything else would be just a band-aide. to happen again! what's prompting this maint? just curious? if those are the original plugs, you're golden dude! replace 'em whilst in hand. all of 'em. just for the GP's or put them back after dress up and gap check. change plug leads iffin you feel the need. along with cap and rotor(app).
How do you fix oil covered spark plugs?
Assuming that you found the oil in the spark side of the plug, it most likely means that your oil rings are worn and cylinders are probably ovals. Usually the valve seals won't get to give such a heavy leak to cover the sparks.Usually they are symptoms that go along with this. Your exhaust gases are white now and persistent, that's oil. Also is possible that by removing the oil cap to find that gases are rushing out. That's a sign that engine is worn.You can still run the engine with the inevitable oil consumption that can be as much as 1 litre/100 km (speed dependent) without losing the power (oiled plug means that cylinder won't fire) in two ways:1: as somebody else here stated out, use “warmer" plugs. They run hotter therefore clean themselves.2: have a machining shop make an intermediate part between spark and head that has a central hole along the main axis. The part should protrude inside head like the old spark. In this way the air fuel mixture gets to the plug through the central hole but oil that crawl on the cylinder wals will be stopped by the protruding wall of the part.Just make sure the new spark is now “colder"In this way I put other 50,000 km on that engine until I had the resources for an overhaul.
How much should it cost to replace my spark plugs and & engine air cleaner filter?
DIY? ~$10- $15 parts-cost for an air filter, $20-$30 for a decent set of spark plugs and maybe an hour of your time assuming you have a spark plug socket, a gap tool, and the proper extension for a ratchet wrench already. Factor in another $20-$30 for decent quality tools if you don't have them and want to DIY. Grand total, about $30-$45 and 1 hour of your time if you own the tools already, $60-$75 and an hour of time if you need to buy tools first. At a shop? Roughly the same price for parts, maybe slightly more (they'll likely mark up parts parts prices a little), and add about ~$100 for labor/shop charges. I'd budget around ~$150-$200 if a shop does it all for you depending on if you go with a dealership shop or an independent shop.
Spark plug color is brownish even when running lean?
Brown [light-tan} is the right fuel mixture. Once they get that way, it is hard for them to turn back to a lighter color even if your are running lean. This is way you need to change to new plugs when tuning. I change only one plug when tuning, and once I get that plug brown, then I change all of them and see if the rest are also brown. If you have a sparkplug cleaner, you can save money by clean the test plug and reuse it for test, again.