anatomy of a polaris spark plug boot

[cmcbride]

My first post, hopefully "how to" is the correct forum for this post. I'm new to PWC repairs so I bought a Seloc guide and I've been reading (I have a 96 SLTX and 97 1050, both with 1050 motors). As I started working I have a couple of newbie things that are not explained:

1. When doing a compression test the guide says to ground the spark plug wires, but doesn't explain "how". I stripped both ends of 3 spare wires (12 guage braided) and shove one end into each plug boot and attach the other to the block. This seems cheesy and likely to come loose inside the boot. How do people typically do this on Polaris motors?

2. Can anyone explain how the plug boots are attached and what is the correct way to trim 1/4" from the wires? When starting to do this I have two specific sub questions:

a. what holds the plug boot to the wire? I "twisted off" the boot to reveal a bare wire and it's not obvious how the plug holds onto the wire or how the electrical connection is made inside the boot. If I had an extra boot I would cut it open and see. Is there metal on the inside of the boot that grabs the wire or is this a rubber suction seal?

b. Should I cut the end of the plug wire cleanly or do I need to "strip" the end to have extra copper hanging out? I suspect the inside of the boot has a nipple that sticks into the hole in the wire to make the connection, but I'm not sure.

Note: I am used to the old lawn mower style where the boot is just a cover over the connection.

Thanks for anyone that has the time to answer some novice questions. I did read/search and couldn't find these answers.

[K447]

Some engines have a spark plug wire grounding bar. Not sure why they all don't have it.

Circled in Red in the photo.

[Keddano]

Welcome to the hulk,
The way your doing it should work fine if you don't have a grounding bar.Most of the caps have like a screw in the cap and your screw the cap onto the wire,you can just cut the wire clean and the screw will go into the wire fine.
Seems to remember on some of the wires the cap and wire is one piece and not removable,they unscrew from the coil. (maybe someone else can confirm or deny this,Maybe the domestics?)

[cmcbride]

My 1050's don't have a grounding bar (bummer), so I'll keep doing what I'm doing unless someone has a better solution.

The plug caps read "NGK TB05EMA". It's easy to unscrew them from the wire and there does appear to be some sort of nipple inside the end where the wire attaches. I can bend the rubber down to the point where the nipple starts so it doesn't appear to have any metal to grab the wire (or a very small amount).

Thanks again,
Cliff

[K447]

Before I damage a wire trying to get it apart;

Do the Ficht fuel injection system spark plug wires ALSO come apart, or are they molded as a unit?
The Ficht plug wires are fairly short (especially on the MSX 140), since the coils are right beside the cylinder heads.

Photos are MSX 140, Virage TXi