How to Make clean a Pocket-sized-Engine Spark Plug

All small engines take a spark plug, and cleaning spark plugs from time to time helps go along your equipment running smoothly. Let'due south do it!

Every editorial production is independently selected, though we may exist compensated or receive an affiliate commission if y'all buy something through our links. Ratings and prices are accurate and items are in stock as of time of publication.

Fourth dimension

An 60 minutes or less

Complication

Beginner

Cost

Less than $xx

Introduction

Knowing how to clean the spark plugs on your small engines volition save yous the time and expense of traveling to a store to buy replacement plugs, and it could get you up and running when a new plug is not readily available. This cleaning task is simple. It takes less than 15 minutes and saves yous the $v to $10 toll of a new plug.

Tools Required

Materials Required

  • Rubbing booze

Project stride-by-footstep (5)

Step i

Remove the spark plug

  • Remove any shroud or covering over the spark plug and use your fingers to pull off the thick wire that'due south pressed onto the pinnacle of the plug. If the wire doesn't pull off, rotating it slightly from side-to-side as you pull will aid.
  • Loosen and remove the spark plug using a spark plug wrench.

Spark Plug Cleaning Removal

Step two

Examine the spark plug

  • Look at the cease of the plug that's normally inside the combustion chamber of the engine.
  • The tip of the spark plug will tell you how cleanly your engine is performing. Dry light gray is ideal. Black fluffy deposits indicate an engine that'southward running besides rich. Wet oily deposits indicate an engine that's burning excess crankcase oil or, in the case of 2-stroke engines, burning gasoline with too much oil mixed in.

Spark Plug Examination

Step three

Clean the tip

  • Flood the tip of the plug with rubbing alcohol and let it sit for one minute, gap-end upward.
  • Scrub the entire tip of the spark plug with a soft brass or plastic brush, applying more rubbing booze as needed to go along the tip wet. Make clean as deeply as possible in and effectually the tip.
  • Rub the tip with a rag to further clean it, then let the plug sit in the open up air to dry. If the tip is make clean, dry and costless of debris, keep to the side by side step. Employ more than alcohol and scrub once again if residual remains.

Spark Plug Cleaning

Stride 5

Re-install the spark plug

  • Use your fingers to thread the spark plug back into the engine. Follow upwards with a wrench for concluding tightening.
  • Button the spark plug wire down over the end of the spark plug. Rotate the prophylactic kicking a bit i way so the other as you're pushing it in identify to make sure the connexion is secure.
  • Replace whatever shroud or covering you removed earlier.
  • Test your piece of work by starting and running the engine.

Spark Plug Reinstall

Originally Published: February ten, 2021