Owner Change/rotate spark plugs?

I'm a long time A&P. Back in the old days I used to hang them on a
piece of safety wire, get them red hot, then drop them in water.
Worked great for me and I didn't have to go hunt some up in the stock
room. Of course, for me, the acetylene torch was closer than the
stock room.

"Victor J. Osborne, Jr." wrote in message
...
Thanks for saying what I was thinking.

All I want to do is change/rotate the plugs (after sufficient oversight -
one time)

I'll buy bulk gaskets. All I need is a fire for trying to save a few
bucks.

Thx, {|;-)

Victor J. (Jim) Osborne, Jr.

If you can't heat spark plug gaskets without starting a fire maybe you
should rethink changing/rotating the plugs in your aircraft.

When they get too thin they also get too large and slop around
on the plug, giving adequate warning that they should be tossed. Some
of the sparkplug-type CHT thermocouples are thinner than a gasket but
the plug still threads far enough into the head. No gasket is used with
the thermocouple.

Dan

IMHE, they flatten by getting larger in outside diameter and smaller
in inside diameter..... they can be a pill to get off then...
depending on how far they have ridden up on the radius between the
threaded portion and the flange.

The thousands of copper gaskets I have changed have never shrunken
in ID and stuck on the plug. Automobile plug gaskets will, but they're
a hollow gasket that will reduce in ID when compressed. The coppers get
chucked when they get too big on the ID, as all of them eventually do.
I check every gasket before using it, as the annealing process will
blister it if it gets too hot. I use a propane spitfire torch; gets
really warm really quick. Annealing 100 gaskets takes maybe ten
minutes.

Dan

Howdy!

In article ,
RST Engineering wrote:
Oh, please, for the love of God, don't do this. This is how you HARDEN
them, not soften them for the annealing process. Heat them red hot with a
torch and let them cool in ambient air to soften them.

Copper and silver (and probably many other non-ferrous metals) are annealed
by quenching. You can't harden them by heat treatment. You harden them by
working them. Yes, this is opposite to how you harden/soften steel.

Google for "anneal copper". One site I found was
http://www.key-to-metals.com/Article25.htm
which seems to cover more than just annealing work-hardened copper.

Now, one can fairly wonder why one would want to reuse old gaskets when
they can be bought fairly inexpensively, but that is a different matter.

yours,
Michael


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Michael and MJ Houghton | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
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