heck,
I've had a parts storeask me to check out a rebuilt carb that they had
sold,afterthe  buyer installed in on their engine.
I found at least one spark plug with the electrodes *missing* as in not
there at all.
I guess you could call that spark plug failure.

It's common , to me, in small single cylinder engines for 'the spark
plug' to be why it won't start or run. Seen it many times.

On 1/14/2013 5:39 AM, Pat wrote:
> Had a plug fail in my lawn mower a few years ago.
> That was the first and only complete failure I ever saw of that nature.
>
> OTOH, I had plenty of plugs stop firing due to carbon fouling.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> JRodgers
> Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 2:02 AM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Dead Sparking Plug!
>
> I have never in all my years of maintaining engines had a spark plug
> that just plain quit. But it just happened.
>
> Running fine - then suddenly rough. Started that tests. First looked at
> the distributor - near new. Next tested the lead by running the engine
> and putting a strobe on it. totally dead. Pulled the plug, check the
> electrodes - near new. Put the plug back in. Got another known good lead
> and installed it. Checked with the strobe - stone cold dead!! Only thing
> left = dead plug. Replaced with new - fired right up running smooth. I
> have had distributor caps go dead on one plug, I've had many leads go
> bad or dead - but never a spark plug - not like this - stone cold dead.
>
> Like the Lil' Boy sez _"Larn sump'in new every day!"
>
> John
>