NASTY spark plugs

[Stewart Fan]

I was at Pep-boys taking advantage of the M1 sale,and overheard a guy asking about spark plugs. He showed a couple to the parts guy,and they were the nastiest looking plugs I've ever seen. The electrode end was covered in a white and gray gritty substance,that almost completly covered the end of the plug. I didn't hear what they came out of,I assume it was a V-8 because he asked for 8 plugs.I can hardly believe it was still running.

Any idea as to what the buildup was?

 

[The_Jeff]

hard to tell without seeing the plugs but he could just have been burning oil. Maybe he bought a neglected truck and is bringing it back into shape, showing the old plugs off as "trophies".

Note the outside of the tips can be totally cruddified while the firing zone is kept clean by the spark. This picture is from a neglected Hyundai Accent I fixed up for my sister; they grew from .040 to .060 so they were in there a while.

 

[Stewart Fan]

They were way worse than that plug. The electrode was barely visible on a couple of them. Maybe it was burning alot of oil,and the heat of the plug turned the deposits into ash.

 

[ZR2RANDO]

Could be burnin lotsa oil, or been sparkin lotsa years and burnin a little oil too! Used to be that plugs got changed normally by 12k miles-whether they needed it or not

now even the non-platinums stay in use maybe four/five times that? Platinums are supposed to be good for 100k miles....(at least the metal doesn't erode and widen the gap)
Kinda like not goin to the dentist for normal cleaning and then just showing up on your 20th birthday and the guy says "you're still chewing???
Bad thing about extended maintenance intervals is when something starts going wrong it can stay wrong longer before someone catches it...unless it just goes kerchunks-bling-blang or something!!

And Dangit my birthday is tomorrow!!!! Yeah I'm only 20

 

[moribundman]

That looks similar to the ash-fouling I experienced when I used fuel stystem/injector cleaner with platinum spark plugs.

 

[michaelc80]

Years ago I bought a 71 Ford van with what I thought was a bad engine. It would run, but sounded terrible. I had planned to rebuild the engine, but once I towed it home and pulled the spark plugs I discovered they were so fouled that I nearly couldn't see the electrode. Put fresh ones in and it fired up and ran fine.

I kept that van for about 4 years and never had a problem with it.