Well, I was tickled with it arriving yesterday. They were predicting 5 days... Anyways, rather a simple tool (I was worried it would be complex) with not a lot of instructions. $48 + the shipping where I found it. I pulled the cross threaded plug, shined a borelight into the hole and rotated the piston away from where the plug seats. To start, apply a 'gob' of grease to the bottom of the tool to catch any errant metal that the tool throws off. Insert the tool, turn the knob to expand its threads to engage the good ones at the bottom of plugs reach. Once it has snugly engaged the threads, wind it out. I cleaned up any loose grease and for good measure, inserted it again and repeated the process. The only dicey parts was reinserting the new plug. I was VERY careful to only turn it all the way in by hand. Once it hit the seat, tighten as usual torque specs suggest. I'll admit ~$55 for the tool with shipping is a LOT for such a little tool, but I am back in business with this small engine. And to compare it with having it out-of-service for 3 weeks plus the cost of a helicore... no contest. Anyone interested in this product? I'd give it a hearty endorsement. It's called a "KD back-tap internal spark plug rethread tool" Mine was 14mm to match the plug thread in my honda GC engine. I think they come in all plug sizes. And Made in the good Old U S of A! Thanks to those that followed along and offered help and suggestions.

*SIGH*... Y'know mownie, I really do think that the hard-to-turn-the-engine-over syndrome is related to the starter. Now I can't get it to turn the engine more than a single revolution at all even when it is cold (I have it uncovered so I can see what it is doing when cranking it), let alone turn it over to fire. This is what it was doing when it was hot. So can't try out the carb adjustments yet since I can't get it to turn the flywheel fast enough to fire the engine at all. What HAS been happening is when you turn the ignition key, the starter driveshaft pops up, the gear engages the flywheel, then it stops wmmph at a high compression point in the engine or something, and then labors and can't turn it past that point, like something is jamming up somewhere. At least once tonight though it cranked the engine a couple revolutions without incident but it wasn't seeming to get any firing action; that was right after I put the battery on the charger briefly. THEN, after that a couple times the starter drive shaft (or whatever it is) did not pop up at all upon turning the key; it sat there and spinned....so we know it is getting current. Tried a little WD-40 to the shaft under the silver disk-shaped part below the gear but did not make much difference...a and finally another time the shaft popped up, engaged, stopped (when it stops it is engaged with the flywheel and stays there after releasing the key; you have to turn the shaft to make it come back down), and then there were a couple of clicking noises coming from inside the starter too when the key was held in start briefly past the jam-up point. That also happened on one or two tries. Sooooo....Battery? Starter? Neither? Both? lol. I replaced a broken plastic part at the top of the drive shaft on the starter season before last; will have to look up what it is called but remember removing and replacing the pin that holds it all together to the drive shaft was next to impossible...so kind of hesitant to try to tear it all down again because it was such a pain. Way easier to just buy a new one, albeit a lot pricier.. Might make more sense just to put the battery on the charger to be sure it does have sufficient charge before blowing $125 on a new starter but will it hurt the battery if it DOESN'T need charging to do this? Can't afford the starter at this point anyway. Sorry to change this thread so late in the game, if you think I need to start another let me know. Dang dinosaur...it just doesn't want to do any work, that's all... :^\

Typically most gaps are .030" and if a person didn't know- you could probably get away with that. On common exceptions- most Kohler CV singles are .040" and Briggs 12" Inteks have a desire to want to be set at .020" on those w/ hot restart problems. If there is reason to suspect otherwise- best look in the owner's or service manual.

It wouldn't hurt to replace the receptacle....if it's older, chances are the contact's poor and would be contributing to the arcing, in fact, if it is bit marginal and is wired in the backstab (where the wires are just stripped then pushed into the back of the receptacle, not wrapped correctly around the screws on the side, that may contribute.