How to Gap Spark Plugs.

Adam Mechanic

How to correctly gap your cars spark plugs. Please like and follow for more content.

Transcript

00:00Hi everyone just a quick video on spark plugs how to check them and how to get them correctly so

00:06I've got a couple of tools in front of me and a couple of spark plugs I'm just going to show you

00:09how to do it so the first tool I'm going to show you is the spark plug gap tool which cost me three

00:15pounds and it's well worth having one of these they're very very handy if you're going to do it

00:20more than more than once it's certainly worth investing in so on one side as you can see we've

00:25got it in inches and on the other side we've got it in millimeters which is what we'd use here in the

00:30uk so we've got a scale here from 0.45 millimeters right around to 2.55 millimeters if you look at

00:38the side of the the tool here it starts at the bottom here at the 0.45 millimeters and uh slowly

00:44gets thicker and thicker as it goes around the side of the uh tool until it's uh the maximum size of

00:50this the depth of this tool so um in the middle here as you can see we've got a gap opener uh so

00:57just like a bottle opener that's going to open the uh electrode gap up for us and then we've got this

01:01bit around the side here where we can test it um and and re-gap it so I've got one spark plug here

01:07that I've already gapped the car that I've got uh is 1.1 millimeters the uh spark plug electrode gap

01:15um most cars are going to be between 0.8 and 1.3 um so I'm just going to pop it in there so if you just

01:20want to check it really quick way of doing it just slide it in and then slide it up to the point where

01:26it nips and it won't really go beyond that point so at that point it holds on nice and tight uh and

01:32it's not going to fall off so that's being gapped at 1.1 millimeters um so I'm happy with that one so this

01:38one that I'm actually going to gap with this tool is here so I'm going to do the same thing again I'm going

01:43to pop it at the bottom of the millimeters I'm going to slide it up to the point where it gets stuck

01:47which is about one millimeter so I just need to open this one up a little bit more uh to gap it

01:52correctly for this engine so all I'm going to do is I'm going to put the spark plug uh head through here

01:57for the ground electrode and then I'm going to bend it like so that opens it up a tiny bit

02:05and then I'm going to check where we're at with it so we've gone too too far which is absolutely

02:11fine we're up to about 1.3 1.35 so all I'm going to do is get it to where I want it which is 1.1

02:18and then I'm going to turn it over and on a hard surface so on a metal bench ideally

02:24let's make sure I've got it still correct which I have I'm going to push that electrode gap down into

02:32the tool and now that's set nicely at 1.1 millimeters um you the other tool I've got is the uh

02:45feeler gauge as you can see on here it shows 0.05 millimeters to one millimeter and there's 13 blades

02:51so if I open it up like a Swiss army knife you'll see each of these blades has a different thickness

02:56one millimeter 0.05 and so on so if you just want to check your spark plug gap uh one there and if I

03:03get the other 0.1 it'll be here somewhere you can use uh one finger a combination of fingers put them

03:10together and pop it into the spark plug gap and hopefully it says that should be perfect yep so

03:17that's holding fine um you could I suppose push this down on the table and nip it but

03:24um I'd not recommend using feeler gauges for that because the the the steel on these is so thin that

03:30you'll end up kinking it and damaging it and then you won't be able to uh use it again after several

03:36goes at doing that so this is a far better tool for measuring it's nice and accurate

03:40but this uh spark plug gap tool is really given the size of it it's a great little thing to have with

03:45you because it's you can check you can test it you can open the gap and you can reduce the gap

03:51and it doesn't take up much room and as I say this one's about three pounds and this one's about three

03:56pounds as well so they're not expensive and they're well worth having uh why is the gap important well

04:01if the gap's too large uh under pressure in the cylinder the spark might not be able to jump from

04:06the central electrode to the ground electrode and you'll have a misfire and if the gap's too short

04:11then the spark will jump across just fine but the problem is it won't jump across for long enough to

04:16burn all the fuel air mixture uh and you'll have unburnt fuel in there and your car will be running

04:20rich and that'll have uh effects on your emissions and your catalytic converter and so on so uh nice

04:26simple test to do uh and um yeah two different tools to use it hope that makes sense see you on the next

04:32next one

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