Fiberglass Sleeves for Old Worn Spark Plug Wires

Weird, why is the insulation melting? And why not just buy new spark plug wires.

George H.

The wire holder broke off in the late 20th Century and the wires have been rubbing against the exhaust manifold for the last 80k. The manifold has these polished spots from the wires.

It seemed to work until a few weeks ago when the engine would sputter when accelerating in higher gears up a hill.

A cheap timing light on the #1 wire flashed for all wires. It was hard to tell if it was the timing light or the wires shorting out on each other.

It was cheaper to wrap the old wires with fiberglass air filter material.

Nice looking aftermarket sleeves would sell for $1 piece in auto parts stores.

Bret Cahill

Unlikely to work well. woven fibreglass won't seal a hole in the insulation.

Won't work. The high voltage wires for spark plugs are round so that the surface electric field is uniformly low, and doesn't cause St. Elmo's fire (corona discharge). If the insulation is damaged or even changes diameter significantly, corona results and the results are very corrosive and damaging.

You MIGHT get some benefit from the bulky corrugated-wire-loom stuff, but it's more melt/burn vulnerable than the silicone of modern spark wires.

Buy new wires. Use wire-spacing gizmos (ask at an auto goods store) to bundle them, and adjust so they don't brush against the hot parts (exhaust manifold).

Bret Cahill posts stuff thats sounds like it came from Mother Jones Magazine. Mother Jones mag had all kinds of articles that were supposed to recycle this and that to make something just as good as the real thing for little or no money. I remember an article about making your own stick welder. Cobbling together an old lawnmower engine that somebody had discarded, an old tossed out alternator , used pulleys, a rheostat, and a vee belt was supposed to make a stick welder that performed as well as a store-bought welder. And even better than the cheap buzz boxes that only put out AC. The alternator recipe was supposed to result in a good DC stick welder. The rheostat was used in lieu of a voltage regulator so the power out could be adjusted, just like a real welder. I forgot what you were supposed to use for welder cables but I think an old set of scrounged up jumper cables was mentioned in the article. Eric

Don't you mean 'Mother Earth'. He is lame a troll who likes to try to stir up arguments. Do a search on his name and you'll see for yourself.

I was hoping the fluffy filter material would provide spacing.

In any event, it only seemed to work somewhat with advanced timing which, it turns out, caused low fuel efficiency. Hopefully it's a fuel problem after all.

I keep 5 gallons of water and a bicycle in back just in case.

Bret Cahill

Well "Mother Earth" was Emma Goldman's magazine about a hundred years ago.

People are thinking of "The Mother Earth News", which is still publishing to this day, despite morphing a few times and changing ownership.

Michael

Greetings Michael, Yes, I did mean Mother Earth News. Oops. Thanks for pointing that out. Cheers, Eric

My parents had a lifetime subscription.

Is it still running?

Since it's changed hands a few times, I wonder if that cancelled out the lifetime subscriptions?

Some people bought life subscriptions to "73" in the early days, when a life sub was $37. Since the magazine lasted about fifty years, that was good value. I should have bought in when they had a special in 1973, I still would have gotten my money's worth, even if one subtracts about the last ten years of the magazine where it was in bad shape.

Michael

My mother was still receiving issues when she died.

I got screwed by Byte and Kilobaud, both started by Wayne Green.

Woven fiberglass? High voltage will arc right through that. Even more fun when it gets wet.