|
|
Posted by Tim Holloway on Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 18:23:00 :
This afternoon I was driving my Power Wagon (the FFPW) Got avout half a mile from home and I hear a rapid POP POP POP POP coming from the engine. Whoa, this dosent sound good! I pull over and shut it down. Take a look under the hood and notice the plug wire for #4 is off (318 Poly) I go to put the wire on and feel the sparkplug is loose. Not good! I didnt have a plug wrench with me so try tightening it up with my fingers. Did you know spark plugs get hot? Finally smartened up a little and slid the plug wire on and turned it with that. Soon I realized it wasnt tightening up. With dread in my heart I started it up, got turned around and came back to the shop. Brought it in and put a plug wrench on it, it was tight, but the insulator was loose. Got the plug out and it wa a mess. About half an inch of the bottom of the ceramic was missing as was the ground part of the electrode. The electrode would slide up and down as would what was left of the ceramic. It was 4:45, I am 10 minutes from the parts store so I hopped into the Ram and went to town. Bought a new set of plugs. I started it up briefly with the plug out, hoping it might expell some ceramic. I did a compression check to see if there was a hole in the piston or a bent valve etc. Compression was at 80, which is troubling, as the engine has had good compression but I cant recall the exact numbers. I stuck in a new plug and took her for a drive, seems fine. However, it nags at me as to why it would have happened in the first place. Did the plug just fail, or did something happen to make it fail.
Curiouser and curiouser!
Tim
Follow Ups: