The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop refurbished spark plugs???????!!!!!!!!!!

somebody gave me a set of refurbished spark plugs from the 50s or early 60s that were redone in the 70s sometime (by the looks of the package) and they are really cool, but i wondered if they still do spark plug restorations.


Indy

Just to be clear, this was posted on the 2nd, not the 1st. Refurbishing spark plugs? Wow...

Jeff

hah! nobody even cleans them anymore, let alone refurbish and repackage them ... back in the day there were machines like this specifically to sandblast the tip and test the shell and porcelain at every service station [ya know, those places that folks bought gas and got tuneups], now they're just changed by mileage or when they get too dirty

Bill

I'd like one of those testing and cleaning machines, we had one in high school shop class, quite handy.
Recently I've been cleanings some in an ultrasonic cleaner with simple green and water. I made up a nice little rack they drop in with the electrodes pointing up and a handle on it to place and retrieve it from the cleaner. It works great on sooty/fouled plugs, not sure about well used caked on hard carbon, haven't tried any like that.

Grigg

Years ago they sold refurbished plugs. I never did use any. The sandblaster was used a lot. If they weren't worn bad we would file the electrods flat & regap them. I have a small sand blaster for spark plugs that I use often. If they are run at a lot of slow speed driving & rich mixtures they build up a carbon deposit. The SB cleans them up.

Back in the 50's and 60's we had regular customers that plugs cleaned because their vehicles used so much oil that they fouled out in a hurry. I don't remember selling our Champion rig, but I'm not sure where its at either. I haven't owned a vehicle long enough in the last 30 years to have to change plugs. I feel that I'm money ahead by trading before a vehicles has 50,000 miles and plugs last longer than that. In fact I'm not even sure where the plugs are at on the last couple of 6L GMC's I've had. But I would have no problems using cleaned plugs in my old jalopies. In fact I would prefer a cleaned AC C45 over what is sold today.

these that i got are AC 43N's

Back in 65 while working at the Chevy Dealership we had basically the same machine. Stick a plug done in the top, turn on the air, and wiggle the jug around so the sand would flow good, then as mentioned, file the electrodes, re-gap and you had a happy customer.

I see the "cheap o's" advertised once in a while at a couple of the cheap stores but never considered on.

Just today my weed eater was acting up and I fouled the plug, stuck the plug in the bead blaster and it was good to go.

...back in the early 60's my brother was stationed in France. He had a '59 chevy impala with about 100,000 miles on it. When he came home it was the first time I seen PLUG FOULERS on all eight plugs. If it started skipping we'd just pull the plug/fouler out and clean the little hole that was stopped up and off we'd go again. Those were the days......