Greetings and Salutations
So the other night (morning), I'm driving home, on the interstate, when "Bang!" right in the middle of a lovely tuba solo, the spark plug ejects itself from the spark plug port. Well, actually, it wasn't till later that I determined that this, in deed, what had occurred. It just launched the ceramic portion of the plug - not very far, but out of the rest of the part
- and left me with a badly missing engine. Well, the engine was still there, but 1/4 the cylinders weren't participating in the process of delivering power to the drive train. Pollutants to the environment, but no power. I drove it back to work, and slept at a bud's place (I figure it is easier to walk 1.5 miles to work, than 65.2. Faster too.), and took it in for a Professional Opinion. (Which was, "Yep, need to replace the sparkplug. That will be a hundred dollars. You need to get the engine tuned too, and your rear tires are starting to get wore down.")
Okay, so the sparkplug failed to hold together under operating conditions, does any one have any explanation why this plug might have "gone west" (so to speak) in this fashion?
Oh yes, I'm driving a 1990 Ranger, 2.3 liter EFI, and I "just" had the plugs replaced during a tune up a year ago.
cheers pyotr
p.s. Taking a Ford into a Chevy dealership (it was that or nothing, small town), provides a number of opportunities for humor. "You do realize, that if I had a Chevy, this wouldn't have happened, and you guys wouldn't be getting paid for this?" . "cool" in a bizarre manner, but very disturbing, especially on the drive back.