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Spark plug oily !


shorty1978
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Ive recently serviced my bike and noticed the spark plug was quite wet and oily , I’ve put a new plug in and rode it this morning for 3 hours the bike runs , pulls and starts with no issues i inspected the plug and again it was oily , the carb was recently cleaned and set up by a reputable shop ! I’m not sure what to do as like I say the bike seems to be running with no issues although it does smoke when you give it a handful ,  it’s a 2015 2t and been well looked after could it maybe running rich ??? Any advice as to what’s going on would be much appreciated. 

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4 minutes ago, Nebulous said:

How was the bike running? Could there be a restriction in the inlet - or an over-oiled filter perhaps?

This is why I’m baffled as the bike runs absolutely fine and has done since I’ve owned it ! I also fitted a brand new pre oiled filter yesterday ! 

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9 minutes ago, Nebulous said:

Well , until that changes in any way - I wouldn’t worry at all about the wet plug.

Maybe treat your machine to some Strawberry synthetic! I think all 2T’s smoke to some extent. Possible the shop went 1/8th of a turn richer on the side of caution? After all , any work is under warranty - so it’s in their interests.  You can ask them , of course.  Meanwhile , enjoy - and open her up now and again!

Thanks nebulous much appreciated for your advice ?

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Hi shorty, for what its worth, I have owned four Evo's now and every one has had oily plugs, but they all ran fine. I have found that if you lean off the mixture / air screw to get a better plug reading, results in bogging when you open the throttle quickly. I also asked a few other riders about their bikes, but surprisingly they hadn't checked it !

Personally I now ignore the oily looking plug now and just concentrate on how the bike is running, making sure that I regularly clean the carb and always have a clean filter as my current 2016 bike is a bit prone to getting a bit of water in after I wash it.

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6 minutes ago, peter_steer said:

Hi shorty, for what its worth, I have owned four Evo's now and every one has had oily plugs, but they all ran fine. I have found that if you lean off the mixture / air screw to get a better plug reading, results in bogging when you open the throttle quickly. I also asked a few other riders about their bikes, but surprisingly they hadn't checked it !

Personally I now ignore the oily looking plug now and just concentrate on how the bike is running, making sure that I regularly clean the carb and always have a clean filter as my current 2016 bike is a bit prone to getting a bit of water in after I wash it.

Thanks Peter for that information maybe that’s the case regarding the shop and it’s just running slightly rich ! i was thinking because the bike runs fine I was reluctant to start messing with the mixture , and if you say from your past experience with evo’s yours were like it then hopefully I am just worrying over nothing . 

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You could check the heat range of the plug, to see if it is the correct one.   Or maybe even try one grade hotter plug.   Trials bikes take a bit of a battering as they very rarely run under power for more than a minute or so before you are queueing for the next section, and never get to run flat out for an hour or so, like road bikes.

As long as the plug does not foul up and stop working, you should have nothing to worry about.

.

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Just pulling the plug out to discover it’s oily is not the right way to go about checking the running of the engine and plug state. Letting the engine run down to idle will inevitably produce slight oil deposits on the plug due to the throttle being almost closed. What you should try is a ‘plug chop’....this entails getting the engine up to normal temp, riding the bike reasonably hard for a few minutes...with more constant engine speed if possible (farm track or trail) say 4-5000rpm then pull in the clutch and kill the engine all in the same instant...coast to a halt. Remove spark plug and it will show you the condition it was in at the time of stopping the engine running. You should see a nice even biscuit (rich tea) colour around the edge and the centre electrode should be clean with the earth electrode showing a slightly lighter biscuit colour. 

To all intents and purposes, from your description I wouldn’t worry and just get on and enjoy what sounds like a well set up engine, especially as it starts first kick! This is all a bit like reading a medical journey, before you were fit and healthy and now a few pages in you’ve got all the symptoms of some of the worst diseases known to man?????????☠️....??‍♂️?‍??‍♀️

 

 

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9 hours ago, Nebulous said:

Forget the bike!  Get yourself down to A&E as quick as you can.  Don’t queue - go right to the counter and tell them Section sent you!   Why on earth would you have changed that plug , after all the reassurances?  Next , it’ll be an “Is this detonation?” thread.

I only ever remove spark plugs from cold engines.  Had a Relic 600cc Fiat 900t camper once. Took out a hot plug - and it never went back properly after that. You could even hear the swarf rattling in the combustion-chamber after screwing it back and starting up.  The Helicoil business in the 80’s thrived on idiots with inherited colourtune kits and over-eager right-arms.

When you work in the service industry waiting around for plugs to cool down is a luxury that we don’t get. Fiat made there cylinder heads out of hard cheese so you would always wreck the threads, the twin cam engines both Fiat and Alfa Romeo not only used hard cheese but even angled the front and rear plugs differently to the no2 and3 plug holes. I’d the plug won’t go in with fingers or gloved to protect from heat to finger tight then somethings wrong....over eager right arms. With good right arms we threw the colourtunes as far as we could but that was in the late 60’s early 70s when those things that controlled the fuel ....oh what do you call them...oh yes carbs...were adjustable.

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