Original thread title: "Rick, why should we inspect our spark plugs and wires?"

Gee, I'm glad yall asked that question. Yall wouldnt wanna be this guy: Your new poster child for bad preventative maintenance. I submit for your viewing pleasure:







The gap on what's left of the electrode is .045. The wire separated at the middle of the boot (and, yes, that's #6), which meant that I had to go fish the other half of the boot from the plug. Which, of course, left the plug terminal behind, so I couldn't fit the plug socket on right away. Yep. I sure were a retard tonight. To include the fact that I waited until all the stores were closed to do this.

Oh, and thanks for being there to smack the back of my head before I did something stupid like yank straight out on old wires, Bobby. What a pal. (jk)

Well, folks, I think my work here is done. The moral of the story: check your plugs and wires before you try and remove them while doing, say the fwd O2 sensor without the proper tool.

oh, I am batting a thousand today, ain't I?

As much as you read up on here, Bobby typed up a secret, that I didn't even use but will now, don't pull the boot but twist the boot till it pops off! Was in a recent thread.

I always found it odd, a great number of people have this incling to tear up their cars after parts places are closed or on holidays. I'll never understand that.

One guy I used to work with made one comment quite often: "You can tell when someone is going to f**k something up. He's getting ready to f**k something up." He said that once, right before a guy improperly installed some crank and rod bearings, locked the engine up, and blamed it on us. He had tried to buy two boxes of mains, thinking it had rods in there too.

So, uh, is Accel or Borg Warner or Autolite wires a good buy? I really dont know if I wanna afford AC Delco right now.

Richard,

I don't think you did too bad...... I've had wires seperate internally a few times, but never actually had a boot break.
The plug having a .045 gap? That's a smaller gap than I use... What are you looking for? Usually the gap gets bigger with use..... Looking at the blurry pics, I'm assuming you have platinums and the plug looks fine to me.

On my 3100, I got so mad at the hidden wire loom I couldn't release I just started yanking on the wire and snapped it in two. I had new wires for replacement, so it wasn't too big of an issue.

guys, please, lookin for wire suggestions...Accel, Borg Warner, Autolite?

One is as good as the other. They're probably made by the same person. AutoZone has three tiers: Valucraft, Duralast, and Bosch. They all look the same to me.

Thanks for the advice, Rook, but I am planning on buying a good set to last awhile. Yet again, buy something cheap like Duralast until payday when I CAN afford AC Delco...Opinions on Accel, Borg Warner, and Autolite, please?

I run Accel 8.8 spiro pro.
I had one go bad from grounding out on the heat shield for the AC lines and Accel replaced it no questions asked.
You gotta cut and crimp your own though... If you don't want to do that, I would suggest the MSD's from PFYC.
Taylor makes a wire for our cars, but I'm not impressed with the product... I've dealt with a few Taylor failures.

ok, thanks Clint. I'll make the calls I have to tomorrow and post up here the solution.

Does ZZP sell AC delco wires? I don't have any personal experience with them but everyone says stock GM ignition is the best around.

Yeah, me and my wife had discussed it earlier this evening (just before I logged off the first time), and we decided that it would be better if I went ahead and spent the 78 USD on AC Delco wires and the 30-ish USD on Autolite XP606. So tomorrow, I call Checkers in Cruces to arrange the parts being put aside for me, then call for a wire transfer to afford the parts.

Including that darn O2 socket.

Oh, jackin my own thread here: The sticker I got from ZZP, is that for the inside of a window or can I stick it to my toolbox?

What are the Autolite XP606's?

Honestly you will be fine with regular 605's or 606's, and they are like $1.50 apiece. Save some money that way

I have one of the ZZP decals on my rear glass, or you can put it in your engine bay, or it can go in the trash. Whatever you like

So I can stick it to my toolbox just fine then? I was afraid the adhesive would reverse the logo should I put it there

I looked at www.cskauto.com and all they had were the XP606. Lemme look again to confirm, though.

edit: the autolite 606 (no other charcters, just 606) showed to be a copper core. is this correct?