Just one of the tales that came out of Joe Reath's memorial on the 2nd, some 125 fellow hot rodders , drivers, builders,Camfathers, Crankfathers and friends gathered for a celebration of the life and times of hot rodding and racing. Many tall tales were told but one of the best was Joe Reath convincing a young Tom Mc Ewen that the spark plug with no threads he received from Champion (actually a production mistake) was the new hot set up. Joe was a great story teller and prankster. According to Joe the plug was held in place by Vacuum in the cylinder until the combustion heat expanded the plug for a press fit. He really had the "Goose" believing all this and after he left heading for Isky's for a cam . Joe called Isky and told him to keep the story going, which he did as McEwen asked him about it. As Isky was at the memorial, he verified the story !!S
Did you get to find out how far a blown fuel hemi can shoot a sparkplug?? I'm thinking it might still be orbiting us...
Don't know about a hemi ,but I did see Todd Raliegh's twice blown Olds dragster (front drive with a 671 atop a 471) launch a threaded plug + the wire and part of the cap too. This happened at Colton in '57. Joe and Isky had the "Goose" going over this "Hot setup" .
This is in the same vane as my brother when he was in country in Viet Nam. While working on the Hueys, he would tell the new guys to go to supply and get a 5 gallon pail of Roto Wash. You can figure out the rest of that one.
i had a set of those quick change spark plugs, the way it worked was like a craftman ratchet, you pushed down on the top and a little ball fell into a slot and you could pull the plug out.
I don't know about "quick change", but I've known a few guys who had "quick release" spark plugs. Didn't work out very well for them.
With a friend in his car when his transverse-mounted V6 launched a plug like a bullet straight into the radiator at start up.
Wasn't quick change but pal had a matchles motorcycle with 3 piece plug. Could be dissasembled to clean then reassembled. Neat.
Somewhere, I've got an old Champion rebuild kit for Model T sparkplugs. It comes with a new porcelin and electrode.
The Jalopy Journal
