I own/operate a 1966 Mooney. Its a bit different owning than renting, because I’ve learned a LOT about maintenance (and have a lot to learn). One thing my mechanic suggested when I first bought the airplane was to always travel with a spare spark plug and the tools to change it. Removing and replacing plugs is one of the things an owner/pilot is allowed to do under part 43 preventative maintenance w/o A&P supervision.

Anyway in the past couple years I’ve had several fouled plugs — and no, they don’t always clear with an agressive runup. My tool kit also contains some dental-pick style tools to clean the plugs, and usually when a fouled plug occurs there is a little “dot” of hard carbon shorting the plug electrode, rendering it useless.

The trouble is, stopping to take care of the problem – even without having to wait for a mechanic and having tools available – takes 30 minutes to an hour by the time all is said and done.

I realize that clearing a fouled plug isn’t something a renter pilot can typically do, but you might have a mechanic show you how to deal with it sometime, lest this occur when you’re out in the middle of nowhere.

and good job on scrubbing the flight instead of taking off in that condition.

So yesterday, I had a friend of mine at the airport take me down to Eugene in his Cessna 180 to pick up the club plane. Boy that was helpful. Definitely beet driving, for sure!

Turns out it WAS fouled spark plugs. I guess it was just gunked up enough that the normal “burning off” procedure wasn’t clearing them. Bit of an inconvenience, but worked out in the end.