AC 44 spark plugs

[Timothy B.]

I have a used set of AC 44 original spark plugs with the four thin green circles. I have glassbeaded to clean around the tip and regapped and wanted to know if I can reuse them.

They were not fouled and there was no carbon build up, just old plugs. I am courious what method was used in the old days to clean them and if glassbeads would ruin the plugs.

I checked the resistance on my R-44 plugs and they are about 4200 ohms, the regular 44's show no resistance on my meter. That's got to make a difference in spark.

Thanks for the responces, Tim

[John D.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

Tim, Why not use them. Course it's not fun replacing plugs in a 63 with all the shielding on. JD

[Clem Z.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

make sure you get all the glass beads out of the plugs. check using a lighted magnifier to check down inside the plug shell

[Larry M.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

Tim:

In older times, sparkplugs were cleaned using a special air powered sandblaster with fine sand. Many companies made and sold these....they were in just about every garage and car dealer service department. Many were by Champion Spark Plug and AC Spark Plug.

I believe TIP and Eastwood sell smaller hand-held units. I have one from TIP.

Growing up, we always had cars, but little $$$. I never used a set of new plugs in any of my cars until after college. Always cleaned and re-gapped ones Dad picked up at the Ford Garage where he worked as a mechanic. Never had any issues.

Larry

[Timothy B.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

So it would be OK to use these AC44 plugs.. I blew them out with a small air gun and 125psi air pressure so I believe they are clean enough.

The other R-44's are fouled from the rich condition I have been chasing on my 67 car and I wanted to clean them also because they have very little milege. The secondary spark must follow the soot path to ground instead of jumping the gap to ground.

Can these plugs be cleaned to reuse if I need them. I would like to buy one of these plug cleaners or is glassbeading the same result.

[Bill B.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

I would blast them very lightly just enough to remove the deposits. You really don't want to were the electrode down. They can be blasted many times until they quit working. As others have stated many small spark plug blaster were sold to almost every garage across the United States in the 50's & 60"s. Today its even more feasible to blast plugs with the classic AC 44's that is getting harder to find. I blast them, blow them off with compressed air and have a spark plug size tube running with duct tape (102 uses) to my vacuum attachment, works great! You never can be too safe! Maybe its just the ease of mind....

Bill


1961 Black/Silver/Red Int. 283/315 FI
power windows. Frame off 65% completed.
1989 White/hard top/Grey Int. daily driver 167,000 miles

"The problem with Liberalism is that eventually you run out of other people's money" - Margaret Thatcher

[Clem Z.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

once you bead blast the "glaze" off of the porcelain they will get "dirty" quicker. may not make much difference on the street BUT in race engines this shows up quickly

[Larry M.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

Tim:

For DRIVING, I would strongly recommend AC 45 spark plugs for your car. They will burn cleaner and foul less. You can still get on E- bay for around $25/set if you are patient. Another alternative is R45S which is an extended tip resistor plug. They also seem to work well and are still available from ACDelco stores.

A non AC brand that seems to work well is the Denso WU-14. It is the equivalent of the AC 45.....non resistor and 5 heat range.

I used to run AC 44, but changed to AC 45 and have never looked back. Car runs much better around town and general driving. It is a 67 327/350 HP car.

Larry

[Bill B.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

once you bead blast the "glaze" off of the porcelain they will get "dirty" quicker. may not make much difference on the street BUT in race engines this shows up quickly

Very good point Clem, that can leave carbon deposits causing misfiring......

Bill

[Larry M.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

once you bead blast the "glaze" off of the porcelain they will get "dirty" quicker. may not make much difference on the street BUT in race engines this shows up quickly

I fully agree. New is best, but reconditioned will work on the street (or for judging purposes).

Larry

[John F.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

As everyone says, "in the old days" we always sandblasted, regapped, and re-used. Just put a new set of AC Delco R45S in my 62 yesterday. They have the 4 green stripes. $1.99 each at Advance Auto Parts.

[Steven B.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

Tim:

In older times, sparkplugs were cleaned using a special air powered sandblaster with fine sand. Many companies made and sold these....they were in just about every garage and car dealer service department. Many were by Champion Spark Plug and AC Spark Plug.

I believe TIP and Eastwood sell smaller hand-held units. I have one from TIP.

Growing up, we always had cars, but little $$$. I never used a set of new plugs in any of my cars until after college. Always cleaned and re-gapped ones Dad picked up at the Ford Garage where he worked as a mechanic. Never had any issues.

Larry

Larry is right on. A "few" years ago I worked at a Mobil station and we had a small cleaner. You would screw one plug in at a time, hit the button and very fine sand would clean it quickly. The porcelain was never exposed. Remove the plug, hit it with the air gun and then regap. I assume at some point the sand was replaced, but I never knew of it.

After that I was a Line Boy at a small airport. We cleaned airplane plugs the same way.

Unless a plug was extremely worn, had cracked insulator, broken electrode, etc. you couldn't tell the difference in performance.

Steve

[Clem Z.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

Larry is right on. A "few" years ago I worked at a Mobil station and we had a small cleaner. You would screw one plug in at a time, hit the button and very fine sand would clean it quickly. The porcelain was never exposed. Remove the plug, hit it with the air gun and then regap. I assume at some point the sand was replaced, but I never knew of it.

After that I was a Line Boy at a small airport. We cleaned airplane plugs the same way.

Unless a plug was extremely worn, had cracked insulator, broken electrode, etc. you couldn't tell the difference in performance.

Steve

i was referring to the porcelain inside the metal shell where the center electrode is located

[Stuart F.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

I'm sure Clem would agree, anyone who has ever had a SHP engine that they actually used in a performance situation (drag raced, sports car raced, oval track raced, or even street raced) would never clean and reuse a set of spark plugs. Engines run up to red line must have them. When I drag raced in the late 50's and early 60's, I would make one run on the plugs in the engine, then come in and put a fresh new set in for competition/eliminations. I did this every week that I wanted to win. If you are talking about an L-75, well, ok go on the cheap. You don't need the new plugs above 5000 RPM. If you are talking L-76 or L-84, then you need the new plugs - unless you don't mind the cutting out and missing above 5000 RPM. There are very few plugs that are "Self Cleaning", specially with point type ignitions. About the only plugs I have ever tried that might clean up (in a low compression engine) were Bosch Platinums. No AC or Champ of the old vintage. I've heard some of the new ones are better, but they don't have AC-44 or 45 printed on them.

Today I run Champions because mine last so long I'm afraid that if they were AC's, they would rust into the heads.

[Bill M.]

Re: AC 44 spark plugs

[quote=Timothy Barbieri (6542);418811]I checked the resistance on my R-44 plugs and they are about 4200 ohms, the regular 44's show no resistance on my meter. That's got to make a difference in spark. /quote]

My dad taught me a trick to clear a fouled plug. If you pull the plug wire out of the distributor and force the spark to jump the gap, sometimes the fouled plug will fire and the combustion heat will clean the plug. (My '59 is a no-radio car so the plug wires are easy to get to.)

That's what the resistor plugs do. They have a gap to reduce misfires. I forget the numbers, but even one misfire, where raw fuel gets into the exhaust trashes an emissions test for hydrocarbons.