OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Power Equipment...Mishaps and Funny Stuff Anyone Found A Champion CJ8 Spark Plug?

This is sort of serious and also funny I think.

Many years ago when I was younger I probably over tightened the spark plug once too many times on my old Victa Commando which I have pictured as my avatar, which me and my dad picked up from the local Myer store back in 1982. I have been mowing with this mower since I was a kid and I still use it to this day. They just don't make them like they used to anymore!

Anyway I tightened the spark plug up and it was sort of threaded a bit and didn't tighten up like it should have, I thought ah she'll be right and started it up and it ran ok for about a minute.

When I used the throttle lever to kill the ignition to stop the mower, after a couple of seconds there was an almighty and very loud "BOOM".

I thought what the hell just happened! I looked down and the spark plug wire was just hanging near where the spark plug used to be!

The spark plug had shot out of the head with an almighty explosion and I looked around my yard in the direction it may have travelled but I never found that spark plug...LOL

So I guess the lesson learnt here is always make sure your spark plug has a good thread and it's secured properly. If you have a stripped thread and the spark plug isn't screwed in securely it can be quite dangerous as what happened to me. I think I was lucky that I was standing behind the mower when it exploded and not on the spark plug side!

Thank god for that !
How the spark plug I found in my front yard got there has troubled me for ages. I'm in Perth if you wan't to pop over and collect it.

Cheers
wce

So that was the bullet that flew past me on the Nullarbor.

G'day Converse, wce and Mod BB
Many thanks to Converse ...
What a great story!

This gets my cat-a-pult award for ignition ...
This is a champion story.

Haha that's a classic guys. Seriously the spark plug was pointing in that sort of direction towards the western part of Australia!

Finally after 20 years or so someone out there has found and kept that spark plug. Cheers and thanks for that WCE i'll have to travel over to Perth to pick it up mate..haha!

Hey there Bonnar_Bloke hopefully you won't see any more flying spark plugs travelling across the Nullarbor again for a while mate...lol

Hey there Cyberjack classic stuff mate...lol. When I saw the subject I thought I will mention my mishap and funny stuff with the spark plug story that happened to me about 20 years ago.

Also cheers and thanks Cyberjack for posting all the historic and classic stuff on these forums mate. I thought i'd never find a picture or any information on my old Victa mower when they were new until I did a search on these forums and I found that you had uploaded an original Victa catalogue from back in 1982 which has my exact mower in it. That was awesome to see some original advertising material for my mower. Good stuff mate!

With my mower I ended up unbolting the head and took it to my local mower shop back then and told them what happened. They ended up putting in a helicoil to the stripped thread for a few dollars and I installed it back on the mower with a new gasket and it's still there and works great to this day. But everytime I change the spark plug and I see the installed helicoil for the spark plug thread it reminds me of what happened and I have never overtightened the spark plug again!

Cheers and all the best guys!

G'day everyone just for a bit of a laugh when I see these video clips it sort of reminds me of what happened to my Victa and that exploding spark plug...haha!

First clip here is Uncle Buck's car! Awesome!



Here's Onslo's Cortina from Keeping Up Appearances! Classic!

Many thanks Converse.

I laughed more than I should.
I see ... 'When Spark plugs Escape' - as a name for
a new reality-TV series.

It's odd you would post the last video on this day:-

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/feb/01/clive-swift-obituary

That's how lifeworks, I guess.
Long live explosions of all types!

Cheers
--------------------
Jack