Spark diagnostic tools.

[MIG Wielder]

I was at a car-club event yesterday and in the rather good flea-market I found these spark-plug diagnostic tools.
The idea is that you put them in series with the spark-plug leads and each spark is then visible as a bright red flash. No flash = no spark.
I've not seen this done before so its an excellent idea.
I've tried one out and even in sunshine it worked well.
They seem to be made by Sparkrite who do other useful bits of kit.
Four of them for £7 is good value.
Tony.

[tony g]

Who are you going to get to hang under the bonnet while you check for misfire under load Tony

Tony

[new to this]

i have a set of those,but dont think there be any good on the sprint unless you can join two or three together

Dave

[xvivalve]

There was a product called 'Colourtune' years ago, where the colour of the flash diagnosed the condition, but again, fine on an 1850, useless on a Sprint.

The downside is it doesn't test the plug; a few years ago I had a car that had been laid up for 12 years that just wouldn't start. I cleaned and gapped the plugs, had tested for a healthy spark at the end of the lead, done all the other checks, but completely overlooked the fact that all four plugs were completely dead!

[Richard the old one]

I have found that the spark diagnostic tool and a colour tune or two, one for each pair of cylinders works well on a 1500.

[GTS290N]

Tony, those things are great, I also have a set of 4. Helped to diagnose a faulty electronic ignition on my 1850, all 4 behaved as expected on start-up but as the engine (and everything else) got very hot the 4 indicators started doing random things. It was the fried electronic ignition causing the random events.
So get some. Use them. Record them. You now have a datum point. I got mine from Machine Mart ages ago.

[Toledo Man]

I got a set of 4 among the parts haul I got from Steve W. so I decided to keep them for myself. Very useful for diagnosing ignition problems.

[TrustNo1]

They have been around for years and even Halfords still sell them although they are not cheap to buy new.
As for Colortune they can be used on the Sprint using the extension probe.