B spark plugs- reality, voodoo or coincidence

My Dad had this little B that he used for mowing at his place, but it stopped running a few years ago and he never got around to getting it going again.  It was inside for several years, but in the humid basement of the barn and one cylinder (with the exhaust valve happening to be opened) got some light surface rust and stuck the piston.

Champion J8 versus Autolite 295.  No resistors in either, both gapped to .030".  Both traditional electrode plugs.  When I get home today, the AL 295s are going back in to check to see if it runs with them.  Maybe it just decided to start when it did and the plugs weren't part of it.

Edited by HoughMade - 07 Nov 2017 at 1:59pm

I vote voo-doo. I have always heard people say (and from my experience) a B will not run well on champion plugs.

You're doing great with it.  I can't wait to see YOU riding it and cutting the grass in the same spot as your Dad.
I'm glad you have some great memories along WITH the tractor.  B's and C's are great little tractors to have fun on.

My dislike for Champion plugs stems from an incident where one plug's crimp failed... where the base grips the ceramic tower... it spit the tower right out, electrode and all, and the guts fell, with wire still attached, down into the bilge of the boat.

Amidst that incident, a piece of ceramic clearly chipped loose and fell into the engine, scoring-hell out of the #1 cylinder, consequently ruining compression.

I'd never have that happen before, but I explained the incident to five other friends, and they were all able to identify the brand of plug BEFORE I mentioned it. When I asked them how they came to that conclusion, they said that it happened all the time.

One of them also suggested that I start up an engine running Champion plugs, and spray a little WD-40 down at the crimp, to see if they were sealing up... and he was right- they all bubbled. The engines running other brands (Nippondenso, AC, Autolite, etc) did not.

Older Champions may have been good, but that one incident, and Champion's shunning the issue, have assured that I will never, ever, ever purchase or recommend their product. To have one fail is one thing... to have it destroy a perfectly good engine, is totally another. To find that it's happened to many people, means they simply do not care.

OK- well, if you’ve had good luck with the Autolite 295s, bless you. I’m sticking with the Champion J8Cs.

As I said back in the original post last fall, I could not get it to start very well at all and and when it did start, it barely ran with new Autolite 295s, but when I put the old Champions back in (including one that had been rusted in a cylinder that had stuck (I cleaned it up), it started and ran great. However, thought it may be coincidence because I had adjusted a couple of other things.

Over the winter, I started with taking the battery box off for repair and replaced the side cover and lid and ended up painting everything from the steering post forward. When I reassembled everything, I put the barely used Autolite 295s back in, figuring that they had not been the problem.

Well, I’m here to tell you, they were the problem. Changing nothing else, tonight I put new Champon J8Cs in and it started right up, purred like a kitten and I just got through with a little test mowing in the front yard. Ran smooth. I’m assuming I got a bad batch of Autolites, but there is no doubt that they were causing the problem. They are the only thing I changed.

I went from barely running and stalling out when trying to mow in 1st gear to running super-smooth and mowing great in 2nd gear with just the spark plug change.



Edited by HoughMade - 01 Jun 2018 at 8:30pm

2 times was enough for me.

The way things are made and handled now a days, someone tossed those plugs on a shelf or counter and cracked them.  I've been down that road before.

Other than close to twenty years back when Champion had quality problems I have had just as good performance with the Champion J 8's as the Autolite . If Champion wouldn't have solved the quality problem they wouldn't be any Champion plugs to buy now. I still run Champion plugs in several tractors.

If you’re going to use a foreign plug, use NGK. They’re made in Japan, not China. I don’t have to say anything about Chinese quality control and cost cutting. It speaks for itself.

Phil48ACWC are those iridium plugs from Rock Auto resistor or non resistor plugs? HoughMade B has a magneto and needs non resistor plugs. Curious for myself too.

Thanks Doug 

NGKXR4IX is a resistor plug. I'm running a 12V ignition with electronic ig module in a WC with WD 45 crank and WC pistons. Compression Ratio is around 7:1. The engine is freshly built and runs excellent with the NGK's. When first built I tried brand new Autolites and Champions and was very disappointed. The Iridium NGK are far better quality and get to temperature far quicker to prevent fouling. The Iridium last 4 times longer than conventional plugs which means I may never have to change plugs again in my year round used WC. Rock Auto.com by far had the best price. I'll never go back to conventional plugs.

For the “rest of the story” read here:

http://www.allischalmers.com/forum/topic151330_post1263385.html#1263385

Long story short, I had a weak magneto and, for whatever reason, it would work better with the Champions than Autolites. With a newly rebuilt mag, the Autolites work fine.