Ross, reading your post reminded me of another aspect of ground leaning. I
also start the engine with the mixture in the ground lean position, which is
maybe at most 1/2 inch forward of idle cut-off. Starting has always been
easy with just a single pump of the throttle both hot and cold.

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Best Regards,
Mike.

http://flickr.com/photos/mikenoel/
"Ross" wrote in message
...
texas slacker wrote:
Went out this morning and rolled the Warrior out for a little soul
restoring and piston oiling. It totally fulunked the run-up, tried to
burn the crud off the offending plug, no joy. Took it back to the
hanger and started pulling plugs. They all felt hot so I pulled them
in order. The crudded up plug was the last one. Didn't have anything
small enough to get in the massive type gap. Finally took the plug to
the mechanic and he dug out a special tool to gouge out the offending
material. Put the plug back in and Warrior passed the run-up. Flew
for a half hour just to be sure and made a good cross wind landing.
Life is good.
Now - I need to buy or fabricate some sort of gadget to do a decent
job of cleaning the plugs. In looking around I see that Chief
Aircraft has a sand blaster type for about $23. This looks possibly,
has anyone ever used this particular gadget and did it do the job?
Anyone have a better suggestion? Thanks. Leo

I have cleaned lot of plugs and generally you will always find some
material. That was one reason that I aggressively lean while on the
ground. I noticed the little lead deposits were not there or smaller. My
mechanic had the "special" tool to first dig out the little nodules, then
I took it to his plug sandblaster to finally clean them out. It looked
like he had a awl that was filed and bent to get into all of the areas of
the plug. I have some old dental picks that my dentist gave me that seem
to work also. BTW, his sandblaster was a professional kind and much more
that $25.00. We also took a wire wheel and carefully cleaned the threads
before applying the antisiezing compound to the first two threads. Oh,
and blow out the plug with a air gun to get any grit out.

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Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
Sold
KSWI