General Spark plugs

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General Spark plugs

Plugs changed :
#1 on left..nearest the flex-head ratchet
Along with #2 are reddybrown

#3+#4 are hotter looking

All are NGK FPT.. again Im thinking this was 'Factory fit'

Strangely the leads and coil pack are Champion FPT


I was amused by the FOMOCO on the inlet trumpet too :cool:
20220916_152740.jpg
 
Plugs changed :
#1 on left..nearest the flex-head ratchet
Along with #2 are reddybrown

#3+#4 are hotter looking

All are NGK FPT.. again Im thinking this was 'Factory fit'

Strangely the leads and coil pack are Champion FPT


I was amused by the FOMOCO on the inlet trumpet too :cool:View attachment 412686
Re the FOMOCO bit , more "badge engineering? Years ago I used to buy Iveco Daily parts for my SOFIM engined 2.5 and 2.8s at the Ford Dealers until I realised I could buy the same parts from the Fiat Ducato dealers cheaper simply by removing the100 from the front of the part number. Unfortunately the same company now owns both franchises so that advantage has ended, plus now retired so not an issue.:)
 
FOrdMOtorCOmpany : FOMOCO

Took me right back to my 1st car on the road a mk1 escort

ITs obviously seen today as the 500, panda and KA are basically the same car..build with the same parts

But so was my 2004 panda.. no FORD reference ever seen on that ( just realised the Polish built KA was probably 2 years after.. @2006)

Plenty of price options on these cars..

My twinairs are a tad more niche..and NICE :)

Twinair panda also had NGK FPT on its tired looking plugs
 
Incidentally I am not a fan of wire brushing plugs as the metal fragments from the brush encourage the insulation around the centre electrode to break down.
Once on a Ford Motorcraft course they demonstrated how even sandblasting a brand new plug then testing under load it failed earlier, so every service my customers had regardless of mileage always had new plugs (only the petrol engines;) )
Many of my customers I had for more than 25 years, a few nearly double that, so they considered what I did good value.
Long service intervals etc. may be a good selling point in the showroom, but not in the real world.
Diesel oil changes are a good example also.
That brings back memories of the Champion Spark Plug cleaner: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183053879782

I bet you've used one of them Mike? The plug would be put, "business end" down, into the rubber hole under the red cover then the little lever would be pulled towards you and blasting grit would be blasted by air from the shop airline onto the end of the plug. A bit of a wiggle to make sure all the nooks and crannies were reached was followed by pushing the little lever away from you when it stopped the grit and blasted air only on the end of the plug to, hopefully, get all the grit out. The cleaned end of the plug looked "lovely" but I wonder how many engines had their lives shortened by the grit that careless operators failed to get out? We always subsequently used the shop air gun to further blow out the end of the plug but I bet there were still some traces of grit that wasn't flushed out? After cleaning you would screw the plug into the hole on the right hand side (as you can see in the link), connect the HT lead and apply air pressure to the wee chamber the end of the plug was in. I seem to remember that's what the black wheel was for, turning it increased the pressure which you monitored on the guage while pressing the button to the left of the plug which caused HT to spark the plug. I seem to remember the idea was that it should be able to still spark with the needle in the green on the dial - high pressure - but you condemned the plug if it stopped sparking at lower pressure - ie. in the red. You would view the spark in the wee window hole under the plug.

We did this at every "big" service (ie. not if just an oil change service). The plug would be removed from the engine and visually checked for electrode wear and insulator damage like cracks and tracking marks. If ok it would get a blasting, regapped and electrically tested before reinstalling. The whole practice fell into disrepute due to worries about grit getting into engines and I remember the Champion rep giving us a talk about how you shouldn't "clean" spark plugs full stop. It was during that talk that he told us about how wire brushing plugs is also poor practice as when the wire bristles rub against the ceramic nose of the plug it can leave behind traces of steel which can cause shorts down the nose of the plug to earth thus causing miss fires. He finished up saying that "modern" (and this was probably the late '70s?) extended nose plug designs made plugs, in effect, self cleaning so if a plug was seen to be badly contaminated on removal it was to be regarded as an indication of an engine problem, often the burning of oil, which required to be rectified, not an indication that the plug needed cleaning! We were given that talk while we munched our lunchtime sandwiches and the machine disappeared into the stores that very afternoon!

That brings back memories of sandwiches wrapped in waxed bread bag paper and tea in a big black teapot which was kept hot on a paraffin stove all day. We all took sandwiches to work with us. I don't think there was "take away" or coffee shops like today? The exception being if we were doing late night overtime - a great money maker! - when, around 9pm, the apprentice would be sent up to the chippie for Pie and Chips suppers (scotch mince pie of course with "chippie sauce" - an Edinburgh speciality - slaistered all over) wrapped in brown paper and newspaper outside - Yum Yum.

It's been many moons since I've routinely cleaned a plug and I don't routinely remove "long life" plugs to inspect them at annual service time. I do remove the older, some call them "copper", plugs and regap if needed for exactly the reason given above about large gaps stressing ignition coils. There's a little memory niggle going on in the back of my mind about plug noses no longer being hard glazed? they now look "matt" if you look at a new one. I did read something about this but can't remember why they are now doing this. I do remember it being stressed to not put a wire brush anywhere near plugs for this reason - the matt finish is much more prone to being contaminated.
 
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Happy memories, my party trick with the Champion spark plug cleaner was when someone was testing a plug putting my hand across theirs onto the HT terminal so we both got a shock though I was expecting it ;). My other one whilst at college a rather bumptious assistant lecturer would go around telling people off for leaving tools out, so I left a spanner in view connected to a thin wire to the plug cleaner, when he noticed it and went to pick it up I gave him a blast from the plug tester, shall I say he wasn't impressed, good luck no HSE in those days;) .
Our boss only paid time and a quarter, so not much overtime done.
Re extended nose plugs if one of our own vehicles was an oil burner we would go for the "hotter extended nose plugs" to burn the oil off to carry on driving a banger, no emmission tests in those days.
 
Happy memories, my party trick with the Champion spark plug cleaner was when someone was testing a plug putting my hand across theirs onto the HT terminal so we both got a shock though I was expecting it ;). My other one whilst at college a rather bumptious assistant lecturer would go around telling people off for leaving tools out, so I left a spanner in view connected to a thin wire to the plug cleaner, when he noticed it and went to pick it up I gave him a blast from the plug tester, shall I say he wasn't impressed, good luck no HSE in those days;) .
Our boss only paid time and a quarter, so not much overtime done.
Re extended nose plugs if one of our own vehicles was an oil burner we would go for the "hotter extended nose plugs" to burn the oil off to carry on driving a banger, no emmission tests in those days.
More memories so here I go again. Our instructors were generally held in high regard and we wouldn't have dreamed of doing something like that to them. I have to say though that hours and hours, nay weeks, of hacksawing and hand filing test pieces in the hand fitting classes were pretty tedious but I later much appreciated the skill and "feel" it gave me when seeing the absolute hashups some, supposedly skilled, people made of things. One of our favourite "tricks" was to put a large metal funnel - we all made one in the "tin bashing" classes (I still have mine somewhere) - spout up on a flat bench and trickle coal gas from the shop blow torches (which were there for brazing exercises) inside. Then you would light the gas from the end of the spout which would burn like a big candle as it pulled in the surrounding air. Of course as this burned it sucked air into the bottom, large diameter end, of the funnel until enough air had mixed with the gas inside whereupon the flame at the end of the spout, because there was now oxygen inside the funnel, would ignite the mixed gas inside and the whole funnel would take off as the gasses inside exploded! A "good one" would reach the roof!

Another "silly" one involving HT was when you got into the engine shop - one of the most interesting modules I did at the college - where there were live engines, one on a water brake for recording power runs and others for fault finding and tuning procedures etc. One of these was a VW flat 4 from a Beetle. The "trick" was to pull one of the HT leads when the engine was running and hold it behind your back. Then as another unsuspecting student approached you would say "Hold on a minute, just look at you" and extend your other hand with forefinger pointed at the unsuspecting victim's nose. When your finger was almost touching their nose there would be a loud snapping noise as the spark jumped from your finger to his nose. The results could be very funny but could also result in perpetrator ending up with a black eye or broken nose from the punch delivered by the victim of the prank. I never did it because I couldn't hold onto the HT lead without jumping around too much and giving the game away!

And a last one, regarding Health and Safety, which back in those days was almost non existent. Our workshop was heated by a waste oil burner which, if I remember correctly, was called a Volcano. This fiendishly dangerous device had a large round tank at it's base - maybe 3 feet or so in diameter? - which the old waste oil was emptied into together with a gallon or so of paraffin to make it burn better. On top of that was a funnel chimney which flared out a bit until it got near the top where it then turned back in again. It looked a bit like the smokestack on one of those old wild west steam trains. The side of this chimney was punctuated with many louvered holes. It worked by filling the base about two thirds full then throwing a lighted rag on top of the waste oil/paraffin and putting the funnel in place on top. At first there would just be a gentle flame going up the chimney but after a while the oil would get so hot it started to vaporize and then it really got going. The whole chimney would glow red hot and it mace a pulsing roaring noise a wee bit like a rather quiet ram jet. It gave out prodigious quantities of heat, you couldn't get within a yard or so of it when it was on full song, and made the back of the workshop a nice warm place to be. Often in the winter when the main workshop doors were open, we would all spend time standing around it to warm up again. The most serious incident involving it was when our apprentice (we only usually had one or two apprentices) had been cleaning down a couple of engines and gearboxes using our high pressure paraffin gun. This gun produced a lot of paraffin vapour which was inevitably absorbed into your overalls. This lad was standing with his back to the Volcano at tea break and wee were all sitting around on the old sofa and car seats which we used to relax on during breaks. I remember looking at this young lad and seeing a light cloud of what I took to be steam coming off his overalls. As he'd also have been doing car cleaning I didn't give it a second thought until the foreman leapt at him in a rugby tackle type move and knocked him away from the fire. The "steam" wasn't steam at all, it was vapourized paraffin! The poor lad had been just moments away from going up in a ball of flame! We were all gathered around by the boss with the foreman standing at his side and given a "serious" talk about workshop safety and how we were not to be so "silly" around the Volcano. The fire continued to remain in service though! Later that day I complained about a trolley jack which, in all the ime I'd been there, had never had a saddle. I was told "Oh yes, I know about that, I've got one on order" Don't remember it ever being replaced though.

No wonder Health and Safety became such a big deal. By the time it became important with risk assessments etc I was in workshop supervisor/manager type jobs and I remember thinking "this is all very well but it's going to cost me money and lost production time" Then in later years, as an instructor, I actually flipped 180 degrees and found myself doing risk assessments almost every day of my working life and being 100% committed to the concept.
 
More memories so here I go again. Our instructors were generally held in high regard and we wouldn't have dreamed of doing something like that to them. I have to say though that hours and hours, nay weeks, of hacksawing and hand filing test pieces in the hand fitting classes were pretty tedious but I later much appreciated the skill and "feel" it gave me when seeing the absolute hashups some, supposedly skilled, people made of things. One of our favourite "tricks" was to put a large metal funnel - we all made one in the "tin bashing" classes (I still have mine somewhere) - spout up on a flat bench and trickle coal gas from the shop blow torches (which were there for brazing exercises) inside. Then you would light the gas from the end of the spout which would burn like a big candle as it pulled in the surrounding air. Of course as this burned it sucked air into the bottom, large diameter end, of the funnel until enough air had mixed with the gas inside whereupon the flame at the end of the spout, because there was now oxygen inside the funnel, would ignite the mixed gas inside and the whole funnel would take off as the gasses inside exploded! A "good one" would reach the roof!

Another "silly" one involving HT was when you got into the engine shop - one of the most interesting modules I did at the college - where there were live engines, one on a water brake for recording power runs and others for fault finding and tuning procedures etc. One of these was a VW flat 4 from a Beetle. The "trick" was to pull one of the HT leads when the engine was running and hold it behind your back. Then as another unsuspecting student approached you would say "Hold on a minute, just look at you" and extend your other hand with forefinger pointed at the unsuspecting victim's nose. When your finger was almost touching their nose there would be a loud snapping noise as the spark jumped from your finger to his nose. The results could be very funny but could also result in perpetrator ending up with a black eye or broken nose from the punch delivered by the victim of the prank. I never did it because I couldn't hold onto the HT lead without jumping around too much and giving the game away!

And a last one, regarding Health and Safety, which back in those days was almost non existent. Our workshop was heated by a waste oil burner which, if I remember correctly, was called a Volcano. This fiendishly dangerous device had a large round tank at it's base - maybe 3 feet or so in diameter? - which the old waste oil was emptied into together with a gallon or so of paraffin to make it burn better. On top of that was a funnel chimney which flared out a bit until it got near the top where it then turned back in again. It looked a bit like the smokestack on one of those old wild west steam trains. The side of this chimney was punctuated with many louvered holes. It worked by filling the base about two thirds full then throwing a lighted rag on top of the waste oil/paraffin and putting the funnel in place on top. At first there would just be a gentle flame going up the chimney but after a while the oil would get so hot it started to vaporize and then it really got going. The whole chimney would glow red hot and it mace a pulsing roaring noise a wee bit like a rather quiet ram jet. It gave out prodigious quantities of heat, you couldn't get within a yard or so of it when it was on full song, and made the back of the workshop a nice warm place to be. Often in the winter when the main workshop doors were open, we would all spend time standing around it to warm up again. The most serious incident involving it was when our apprentice (we only usually had one or two apprentices) had been cleaning down a couple of engines and gearboxes using our high pressure paraffin gun. This gun produced a lot of paraffin vapour which was inevitably absorbed into your overalls. This lad was standing with his back to the Volcano at tea break and wee were all sitting around on the old sofa and car seats which we used to relax on during breaks. I remember looking at this young lad and seeing a light cloud of what I took to be steam coming off his overalls. As he'd also have been doing car cleaning I didn't give it a second thought until the foreman leapt at him in a rugby tackle type move and knocked him away from the fire. The "steam" wasn't steam at all, it was vapourized paraffin! The poor lad had been just moments away from going up in a ball of flame! We were all gathered around by the boss with the foreman standing at his side and given a "serious" talk about workshop safety and how we were not to be so "silly" around the Volcano. The fire continued to remain in service though! Later that day I complained about a trolley jack which, in all the ime I'd been there, had never had a saddle. I was told "Oh yes, I know about that, I've got one on order" Don't remember it ever being replaced though.

No wonder Health and Safety became such a big deal. By the time it became important with risk assessments etc I was in workshop supervisor/manager type jobs and I remember thinking "this is all very well but it's going to cost me money and lost production time" Then in later years, as an instructor, I actually flipped 180 degrees and found myself doing risk assessments almost every day of my working life and being 100% committed to the concept.
I do recall as an apprentice we changed a lot of tractor and muck spreader wheels, some split rim types and although no cages in those days we were always pretty careful. The boss came in with a photo from a newspaper entitled "the image of death"!!! It was a outline on a concrete ceiling of a man. Apparently a mishap in a tyre depot and the tyre blew off the rim as he was leaning over it and was blasted to the ceiling.
 
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