The All-Day Affair of Changing a Spark Plug


For those interested, this is the headache-inducing scenario brought about by the need to change a sparkplug on a Cannondale machine:

  1. Remove seat
  2. Remove front plastic
  3. Remove rear plastic
  4. Disconnect gas tank and put aside
  5. Remove aluminum piece above the engine
  6. Pull plug with a socket wrench using two extensions
  7. Replace plug
  8. Put everything back the way you found it

My machine has been fouling plugs quite a bit recently. During the last snowstorm, we were out for about four hours zipping around on the snow-covered trails and having a ball. I got the quad back to the house and tried to start it up the next day, but it wouldn't turn over.

This weekend, I replaced the plug and then addressed the larger problem - no machine should be fouling plugs every couple hours. Craig suggested it was probably dirty injectors, brought about by trying to run it on old gas that had been sitting in the tank for a while. I dumped in some fresh hi-test and added some STP fuel treatment to the tank. The machine sputtered a bit, but started right up after a few tries. I left it running for about 20 minutes yesterday so that plenty of the fuel additive would get to the injectors and clean things up in there. Everything's running nicely now, just in time for the fresh snowfall we got overnight. I might hit the trails for a couple hours this morning.