How To Diagnose and Read the Color of Your Spark Plug

hey guys and girls now this is going to be a video that you're going to want to share with your friends because there are very few people out there that know you can do this or how to do this you take your spark plug out of your engine and you look at it there is a ton of information on that spark plug as to what's going on in your engine it's called how to read a spark plug I'm going to take you through that right now stay tuned hey guys welcome back to Steve small into saloon again Steve small and saloon dot-com right there I got to my website check it out when you get a chance I also got a little link up here for you in the information button if you want to check it out that way Keystone right guys the word on the street is that Keystone white is the exact same beer as Coors Light they make it in the same brewery they just put it in a different can is that true put some comments down below and tell me if that's true or not that's what I've heard I can't tell the difference that's good stuff we are talking about how the spark plugs today and what they mean when you look at them I could go on and on and on you guys for about two hours going through all of the different color variations and what they might mean no one's gonna watch it to our video anyway so I'm just gonna take you through the top five different color variations and what they might mean when you pull your spark plug out things I've learned over the last thirty years these are the top five the one that's normal that you should be looking for I'm going to leave that till the end stay tuned for that before we get into this I'm gonna be referring to two strokes two cycles four strokes for cycle engines through this video and the different plugs so I'm just gonna say this one time so I don't have to keep repeating myself when I say two-stroke two cycle engine that means it's the one that you mix your fuel with you mix your gas and your oil with that it's typically your chainsaws your weed eaters your hedge trimmers stuff like that your four-stroke four cycle engines that I'm going to be referring to are ones you don't mix your fuel you put straight gas in it and it has a separate area for your for your oil now typically your lawnmowers your pressure washers riding lawnmowers rototillers stuff like that okay let's get into this then one of the most common things that I see is a spark plug that looks like this right here it looks wet it looks black and you'll wipe a little bit on your finger like that and you smeared around on your fender it feels greasy that is oil fouling on your spark plug now we'll start with the two strokes two cycles the stuff that you mix your gas in the most common reason that I see a spark plug that looks like that on your two strokes is from your oil mix being too rich something is making nothing burn too rich your oil mixture should be at about 40 to 1 or 50 to 1 something like that a lot of people out there think 50 to 1 means half-and-half they'll literally put half the gas half the oil in there that's way too much well maybe I accidentally just mixed it actually on you have 20 to 1 that could be a reason that your two-stroke right there is making your sparkplug look like that it can't burn the oil that you're trying to make it and burn the other one that I can think of for a two-stroke is that your carburetor everybody knows the two strokes out there and done you got your low speed you got your high speed you tune your carburetor you actually can adjust your lows your your air fuel mixture on that your carburetor could be set completely wrong hey on that note right there you guys I'm showing you what could possibly be wrong with your engine right here well what about repairing it I got tons of videos on my channel already I got four slots up here in the information button and I got four slots at the end of this video with clickable thumbnails that you can click on there I'll split them between there so you can get back to some videos some actual repair videos on how to repair some of this stuff if you don't see anything you like in there just go back to my channel and look through all my playlists and stuff and you'll probably find something on there how to repair this stuff moving on to your four-stroke 4 cycle engines that have a spark plug that look like that in there where you don't mix your gas some of the problems that could be with that or a blonde had a slightly blown head gasket where yeah it still runs but the the head gasket could be slightly blowing where are you getting that engine oil up into the combustion chamber could be that your rings your piston rings are so worn out that the oil is actually slipping past your piston where it shouldn't be and that's causing that problem also it could be your valve guides that are worn out in that that is really rare I've only seen that a few times and they're only on really old four-stroke engines that have a lot of use on them and they're worn out anyways that's when your oil is going to start slipping past your your valve your valve guides okay moving on to number two you got a spark plug that looks like this right here it looks similar to the last one I just showed you but it doesn't look wet and slippery like that it's it's black still but it's dry its dusty you wipe a little bit on your finger like that and it's kind of powdery on your finger kind of like the soot that comes out of your fireplace you see a spark plug that looks like that that's called carbon fouling that is also from your engine burning overly rich but it generally has nothing to do with oil contamination in there it's something else that's making that burn rich your your your engine is not burning what you're trying to make it burn two strokes and forth strokes both could be that your heat range on that spark plug is too cold that could be the only problem it could have something to do with the climate you live in or even the altitude that you live in where if you try everything else and nothing else works and your spark plug is still all black and dusty like that it could simply be that you need to bump your heat range up in your in your spark plug maybe one or two heat range is harder and that could solve your problem right there could also be that the gap on that spark plug is too wide so it's not burning properly also could be that you have low compression in your engin I've seen that happen before I've also seen that when this happens that you're choked sometimes is stuck where it's not working properly where your choke is never really opening up fully it's kind of half choked or fully choked so your engine's always just kind of chugging along that's gonna definitely make your sparkplug look like that as well as a dirty air filter that's a big one you guys if you have a really dirty air filter it's doing the same thing as choking your engine off it's gonna do that to clean your air filter you guys as far as two strokes specifically for two strokes the biggest ones that I see here are again your carburetor is just adjusted incorrectly your low-speed high-speed screws need to be adjusted so it's actually burning correctly as well as your oil fuel mixture couldn't still be too rich not rich enough to make that thing look wet but still burning too rich like that could also be that this is a big one you guys specifically like weed eaters hedge trimmers like that there's a lot of people out there that will take say you take your weed eater out there and you're going to do your trimming and you rev it up you see a weed over there and you rev it up cut that weed and then you go over here and wrap it up and cut that weed your rpms never really come up to full rpm on a two-stroke like especially a weedy or hedge trimmer those things are designed to run wide open throttle you want to pin that trigger down let that thing run full wide-open rpm and that's gonna make your engine burn properly it's never getting up to temperature it's never getting up to speed and your spark plug is gonna look like that right there just from doing that so it could be technically improper use of what you're actually running let's go number three here's this spark plug right here this is a perfect example right here of ash deposits it looks very similar to the last one I showed you with that excessive carbon buildup on it it's all that these stuff on there except it's not black it's white that is on a four-stroke engine that is from excessive oil in your combustion chamber again it could be from from worn-out piston rings worn-out valve guides it could be actually from having too much oil in your engine a lot of people will overfill their engine oil and that engine oil is working itself up into the combustion chamber and it's going to be burning so much fuel that it's going to make those ash deposits on there in the two-stroke engine the only time I've ever seen this in a two-stroke engine is from really bad stale fuel mixed with uncertified mix oil you get those two combinations together it's it actually will cause that in your two-stroke engine - I already ever see this you guys on any engine four-stroke or two-stroke but I thought it was worth putting in this video because I do see it sometimes and there you go if you see that on your spark plug now you know what that is the fourth thing that I read on spark plugs sometimes is an overheating issue when your engine is too hot nobody wants their engine to be running too hot that is a bad thing if you have a spark plug that looks like that right there it's pure white on the end there's no crust no buildup of any kind it's just white and then if you look really close at that ceramic porcelain piece in there if you see any speckling on there it looks like little crystals on there that's a sure sign that your engine is running too hot I've actually only ran into this a few times on four strokes it's not very common on a four-stroke engine the ones that I ran into or a guy who has his lawn more revved up to like 4,000 5,000 rpm it's running way too fast and that could cause that problem right there also the heat range depending again on your climate or the elevation you live that may be your heat range on that spark plug is too hot you might want to bump it down one or two notches into the colder heat range on your spark plug that also plus two-stroke engines right there if you see that the other thing on two-stroke engine again your carburetor your low-speed your high-speed screws on that carburetor on a two-stroke or set incorrectly it's running way too lean and that's a bad thing on this two-stroke engine make sure that your carburetor is tuned properly so number five what is a normal sparkplug supposed to look like then I thought you heard from some manufacturers out there that actually use the words coffee brown color like that one right there you'll look at that spark plug that is a coffee brown color sometimes it'll be a beige tannish color sometimes a little bit grey all those kind of colors are good colors that you want to see on your spark plug the point is really that you don't see any build-up you don't see any crust on there at all it's burning properly and that's what you want to actually see on there however check this out I just put a brand new spark plug in my chainsaw not that long ago but I've used it Lots I've used it tons I've cut up I fell a few trees with it I I've cut up lots of firewood with it here's the spark plug out of that chainsaw right there it's not coffee brown it's not grey it's not much tan it's not beige it just still looks brand new so obviously that's a normal spark plug too I just haven't got enough time and enough hours on that chainsaw to actually turn it to a coffee brown color so I hope I was thorough enough for you guys and clear enough I hope that was informative for you guys subscribe to my channel like this video and share this with your friends like I said at the beginning this video there's a lot of people that don't know you can do this a lot of information on those spark plugs guys put some comments down at the bottom of this channel let me know what you thought I'm working hard on the test video as usual Steve out

Channel: Steve's Small Engine Saloon

Views: 412,807

Keywords: how, to, do, diy, lawn, replace, cut, tutorial, help, broken, stroke, four, two, garden, small, engine, repair, fix, learn, hedge, brush, start, simple, basic, easy, generator, mower, riding, blower, chain, saw, weed, eater, trimmer, grass, install, blade, bar, properly, tips, tricks, efficiently, google, stihl, husqvarna, husky, echo, honda, shindiawa, pressure, washer, hand, held, wont, dull, not, direction, diagnose, save, money, tech, clogged, bogging, idle, up, weedeater, outdoor, power, equipment, leaf blower, lawnmower, read, color, spark plug

Id: Tz4uxFMUCOA

Length: 14min 11sec (851 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 25 2019