Ignition coil gap... a word of caution

Side gapping a spark plug




Loading up the Lopi
Mike in Okla

 

Why don't manufacturers just make plugs this way in the first place? Is there a downside?

 

They do. Not sure on application and cross reference but they are out there.

 

Longevity is the only thing i can think. "Cost of ownership" goes up with more maintenance the vehicle needs. Marketing doesn't like that cause people don't wanna pay more to continue owning/using the vehicle.

The price of some spark plugs these days would make me want them to last as long as possible. When i worked at the stealership, opps i meant dealership, some plugs cost as much as $25 each and that was before covid!

 

Yep. For the Zenoah engines in my large scale RC cars, I bought their gauge. It was cheap.

 

Certainly. I haven't had to adjust coil gap in the woods yet through. Lol

 

Right! I wonder what situation would warrant that.

 

The thin gauges needed to set coil gap are very flexible. I put them between the magnets on the flywheel and the coil. The coil sandwiches the gauge tightly to the flywheel from the magnetic pull. Then I tighten making sure its not lifting the coil off the gauge. It's pretty easy.

 

Yes. This.

 

Maybe the dreaded Husqvarna screws rattling loose phenomenon I hear about? Idk.

 

Only think I can think of is if you somehow got a stick wedged between the flywheel and coil and it tweaked the coil out of place. Probably a one in a million sort of scenario, although I have seen people run saws with holes in the flywheel cover big enough to poke a few fingers through. Dangerous and dumb, I know.

 

I've heard that on the newer ones, all of mine are older and never had that problem. My newest is a 2017 545 and I found the opposite to be true. Everything I've tried to loosen had been extremely tight.

 

It's kinda funny you bring that up. Was cutting some 24"+ red oak yesterday with my 372xt. Was most of the way thru the cut and i must've started feathering/blipping the throttle to not hit dirt. Well she had a mind of her own and started free revving and acting real weird. Long story short. One of the air box/carb box screws came out and got jammed in the throttle mech on the carb. Look around in there and find another just rolling around. I don't understand why they're not locktighted from the factory.

 

Sounds scarry. A good reason to apply the chain brake or better yet kill the engine before ever getting hands near the chain. Self-revving saws are not OSHA approved.

 

To add to that when i hit the kill switch to shut her down it did nothing! Ended up using the choke. Kill switch worked fine before and works fine now. What would cause it to not work, kill spark, while at a high rpm?

 

I've had to do it on the points for my 351 powered ski boat. On the water, not the woods though.

 

I've worked on some older ones with missing screws, stripped out muffler mounting holes, miss matched screws from previous owners loosing and replacing them. Richard flag recently brought this up in one of his repair vids. Its pretty common. Myself, it wouldn't deter me from owning a real Husqvarna, I'd just regularly check the fasteners like I have to do on these gas RC cars. It's part of general maintenance.

 

Hard to walk back to the truck in that scenario. Lol

 

You walk ALL the way over to the toolbox to get one?! I only did that when I had to run a set of valves.