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Hot take: stop checking plugs on a cold engine, and I was wrong about it for 9 years
I always checked my plugs right after shutdown, thinking heat helped. Then a guy named Ray at the Kalamazoo hangar showed me his borescope photos of a cylinder pulled cold, and the plug gap told a different story. Aluminum shrinks way more than steel, so a warm plug can read fine while a cold one shows the truth at .018 instead of .032. I rechecked the same Lycoming O-360 two hours later and found two plugs way out of spec I had signed off that morning. Anyone else get burned trusting a warm reading?
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wren_carr22d ago
Rechecked my O-360 cold next morning and found three plugs under .025, so now I wait two hours minimum.
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