Good way for one man to check spark while pulling cord?

[Old2stroke]

Interesting ideas. I tried the spark testers from HF long ago, which sorta work, but the light is pretty dim and hard to see at arms length when pulling against compression.

I settled on pulling the plug, leaving it in the plug boot and grounding it with a large alligator clip to the cylinder fins. No spark. Checked for a good ground with meter as well. Got an empty TP roll and stuck it around the plug for a better view. Still no spark.

Before I order a new coil/igniter I may get some cotton wadding, or just paper towel dampen it with fuel, stuff it in the tube, or maybe just around the plug and then give it a pull. If there is any spark at all, it should be pretty obvious in just an instant.

What, me worry?

Just because you get a spark with a plug that has a normal gap and held in air outside the engine doesn't guarantee that it will fire in the engine under compression. A better test is to try with a spare plug gapped to about 0.080". If it will fire that in air, it will likely do it under compression as well.

 

[oldbuzzard]

Hey be sure you are pulling that starter rope as hard & fast as you can. I‘ve seen a lot of saws that just won’t spark with slow pulls on the rope. I run volunteer saw crews with retired folks and sometimes older people just don’t have enough umph to start hard saws. (I’m seventy-four before anyone flames me for that remark.)

 

[JohnL]

When working alone, what's a good, reliable, way to check for spark? I have an Stihl 029 that I did get running after a long sit, and cut with maybe half a day.

Now, it won't start. Fuel is fresh, new NGK plug. Squirting fuel in the carb does not help, so I suspect a bad igniter or coil, which may be one unit on this one.

Still, it's money and work wasted if that's not it.

You can use the testers shown above, or just make a ground lead from hardware store parts, 14-16 gauge wire, an alligator clip on one end for cylinder fin or muffler bolt, larger size clamp for base of plug. I find it handy for checking spark on saws with a lot of plastic to ground the plug to something metal with this.

 

[pdqdl]

If my wife's been nagging me all week, I have her hold the spark plug against the block with two hands. While she's standing in a puddle.

Humorous, but standing barefoot in a puddle wouldn't make any difference.

...unless you had a ground wire running from the engine to the puddle. ​

 

[TRTermite]

Humorous, but standing barefoot in a puddle wouldn't make any difference.

...unless you had a ground wire running from the engine to the puddle. ​

Maybe That "PUDDLE" comes after the rope pulling....

 

[bob kern]

Morning all

 

[hotajax]

BTW, I got tricked into thinking my coil was bad. It wasn't - it was that cheesy little wire spring on the end of the high tension lead that sits in the spark plug boot. it's about a half in long, one end of it punctures the wire and makes contact with the conductor, and the other end is a loop that snaps on to your spark plug. Probably the only bad idea from Echo.

 

[Old2stroke]

BTW, I got tricked into thinking my coil was bad. It wasn't - it was that cheesy little wire spring on the end of the high tension lead that sits in the spark plug boot. it's about a half in long, one end of it punctures the wire and makes contact with the conductor, and the other end is a loop that snaps on to your spark plug. Probably the only bad idea from Echo.

Don't blame Echo, pretty much all coil HT leads have the same fitting on the end.

 

[TRTermite]

The first few times I replaced these ends on the "High Tension" (Spark plug wire) gave me problems mostly from Paranoia. Eazee Peezee most of the time now unless the boot is old and hard from age.

 

[Backstage]

I grasp the plug in my fist and ground to the cylinder with my pinkie. Not the most technical but I've gotten good at telling if the spark is good based on the pain inflicted.

Geez, folks and their kinks…

 

[HansFranz]

Just a word of caution here. Will be obvious to some, but might be a helpful reminder for others.

Gasoline is explosively flammable.

Several years back a member posted about his brother getting seriously burned when testing for spark on a flooded saw. There was spark. And there were fuel vapors.

I'll never forget my stepfather helping me diagnose problems with a 40hp Evinrude twin I once owned. He held the spark plug next to the plug hole to ground it, I turned the key, and that Evinrude turned into a fire-breathing DRAGON.

I couldn't believe how calmly my stepfather took the whole thing. "Well, we've got FIRE!" he said.

 

[Okie]

I'll never forget my stepfather helping me diagnose problems with a 40hp Evinrude twin I once owned. He held the spark plug next to the plug hole to ground it, I turned the key, and that Evinrude turned into a fire-breathing DRAGON.

I couldn't believe how calmly my stepfather took the whole thing. "Well, we've got FIRE!" he said.

turned into a fire-breathing DRAGON.

I'll never forget such either. I removed the spark plug from a Hobie EZ chainsaw that I thought was flooded, left the spark plug dangling by it's high tension wire after inspecting the plug, crotch cranked the saw and it spewed lots of gas on my pants at the crotch area like a fire breathing dragon. I was dancing around hitting myself on the gonads trying to put out the fire on the burning pants.
Sure was thankful no one was around to see or record that one on their cell phone.

Moral of story: Do not crotch crank a chainsaw that is suspected of being flooded with the spark plug dangling by the cylinder hole.

 

[pdqdl]

Just imagine 3 or 4 cylinders on a V-8 engine, not just flooded, but filled with gasoline spraying it at your face, and you'll have what happened to me.

 

[Captain Bruce]

turned into a fire-breathing DRAGON.

I'll never forget such either. I removed the spark plug from a Hobie EZ chainsaw that I thought was flooded, left the spark plug dangling by it's high tension wire after inspecting the plug, crotch cranked the saw and it spewed lots of gas on my pants at the crotch area like a fire breathing dragon. I was dancing around hitting myself on the gonads trying to put out the fire on the burning pants.
Sure was thankful no one was around to see or record that one on their cell phone.

Moral of story: Do not crotch crank a chainsaw that is suspected of being flooded with the spark plug dangling by the cylinder hole.

NEVER crotch-crank any saw. Start it like a real man, with 1 hand on the wrap, and the other grips the recoil? Some people take the stickman drawings in the manual seriously.

 

[pdqdl]

You should be aware that drop starting is not an approved technique, despite the fact that most guys, including myself, routinely do it that way.

Crotch-cranking and ground-starting are the approved methods, according to OSHA and several other "safety" related organizations. In fact, all of the organizations that give us rules, tell us not to drop start a saw, excepting only for climbers in a tree.

Crotch-cranking, however, is not quite the term that most folks use.

 

[Okie]

Crotch cranking A CHAINSAW just does not sound politically correct.
Yep you are right, every word has to be so politically correct/gender specific now days.

(so as to not hurt any ones feelings)

Them Nancy types that has to get wording/speech politically needs to get a Redneck dictionary.
and also look up the definition of Redneck.
Rednecks could also use a cross reference manual to get the redneck version of some of them politically correct words used by politicians and Nancy types..

I'm a Redneck.

 

[pdqdl]

Spoken like a true Okie. You don't live anywhere near US 62 & US 69 highways, do you?

 

[GeeVee]

As a couple others mentioned, I went out flounder gigging with no lighter and was ready for a cigarette. My best fishing buddy pulled some stuffing out of his boat cushion, wet it with fuel, and lit it with a spark plug.

To CHECK for spark, I usually find one of my kids who needs to learn not to pull my finger....

 

[Okie]

Spoken like a true Okie. You don't live anywhere near US 62 & US 69 highways, do you?

Shore do.
Right betwinx them thar roads in corner of NE Okla. (sometimes called the 3 states area. Ok, Ar, and Mo)

The more people I meet the more I like my dawgs now days.

 

[pdqdl]

Shore do.
Right betwinx them thar roads in corner of NE Okla. (sometimes called the 3 states area. Ok, Ar, and Mo)

The more people I meet the more I like my dawgs now days.

Well... Muskogee is in the SW corner.

Back when I was a pre-teen, my dad bought a fancy car that had an 8-track player. The only tape he ever bought had this song on it:



So the first song I ever heard that introduced me to modern music was this one! Now that was about the only tape he ever bought, so we heard that one quite a few times. Got that one drilled permanently into my memory.