Hitchcocks Forum

At a recent auto jumble, I forked out a fiver for a thing called a Clean Spark which is a little gizmo that's supposed to grit blast your spark plugs. Works on a 12volt supply. It seems to be working OK but doesn't do much for the plugs. Anyone else tried one?

Emery paper's always worked for me.

Never saw the gizmo but an old trick is to seal one end of a piece of 15mm copper tube and half fill with sharp sand.

Hold the spark plug in the open end and shake vigorously..

Same principal i guess..

Plug sandblasters used to be a useful tool in the days of leaded fuel but these days perhaps not so much. Ive tried to clean plugs fouled be modern unleaded gas and nothing worked except the rather inappropriate use of a mains powered megger. Connecting a fouled Ducati plug to the megger produced an arc in the plug tht burnt with a bright white light until the carbon track was burnt away. Not good for the megger though its owner thought so I only did it the once.

With new plugs so cheap why bother?

Sand blasting is not recommended these days, you would be lucky (or unlucky) to find a workshop that uses a blaster now. As Nobbi says, new plugs are so cheap.

John R - for the same fiver you could have bought 2 NGK's which would have lasted from here to eternity . . .

These contraptions used to be found in many commercial garages. There was also a cleaning method that used a tube filled with spiked needles – the plug screwed into one end and the thing shaken vigorously. None of these methods are really advisable. I'll stick my neck out and say that if carburation is correct and the plug is the correct heat range it should never need cleaning – not even on a two-stroke, provided oil/fuel ratio and oil type are correct. When did you last clean the plugs in your car?

On both Enfields and Ho^&a$ I have had examples of a well cleaned plug not working....and with a brand new one it started straight away.
As above, new plugs are cheap enough anyway.
Though, I must admit, I like the idea of this device; it could go on the shelf with my gramophone-needle-sharpener etc.

All very true; an impulse buy, really. I was a bit intrigued and bought it as much out of curiosity as anything else. The fact that they don't seem to make them any more is probably a clue to their usefulness.