The Story of a Kit Car Build

Sparkplugs

I’d been getting on with all sorts of bits on the car when I found that I was having trouble starting it after leaving it for a while. One day I flattened the battery while trying, so I charged it up and tried again with no luck. I cleaned the spark plugs and was even told to try warming them up with a blow lamp!!!!! I thought there must be easier ways to start a car. I mean, after all, I could hardly carry a blow lamp round with me everywhere, could I?

I was beginning to suspect the carburettor with it being an auto choke. I thought there could be something wrong with that and I couldn’t find any references for it anywhere. So I thought I’d take a look on eBay to see what was on there. There were two webers with manifolds for pinto engines. One was reconditioned, so I kept an eye on those for a couple of days and placed my highest bid £40 + £10 for P&P. They both went for about £50 + P&P. Oh well, not to be I suppose. I found a site that does conversions to manual chokes for about £55, which I didn’t really want to spend so left that alone. One thing I hadn’t tried was some more new spark plugs. After all, these weren’t so old themselves, but I set off to Halfords for some more. I know what you’re thinking. I’d be better off going to a motor factors, for instance, but they only sell one type of plug – or at least they used to – and I’d tried those and another make already. So I opted for CHAMPION. I never gave much thought to the different makes of plugs, reasoning that they were all pretty much the same. Anyway, I tried again with the old ones for a few times with no success, then put the CHAMPIONs in and it fired up first time! I went back in my garage the day after and tried again and it fired on the button. I couldn’t believe it.