oil on spark plugs [Merged 11-7] oily wire wires cover valley well wells

[wolf20043]

I have never used RTV on the valve cover gasket. They are rubber, and to tourqe to the proper specs will seal itself. About 50 and no leaks yet.
Mike

 

[GVR4592]

I have never used RTV on the valve cover gasket. They are rubber, and to tourqe to the proper specs will seal itself. About 50 and no leaks yet.
Mike

I don't use RTV on any of my gaskets either and I don't get any oil leaks. I used to use it and it never really worked out.

 

[jongreene]

I do have a minor problem though, one of the back valve cover bolts is stripped and wont screw in tight enough.What can I do about that?

 

[Splitpi]

The shop manual requires you to use RTV in 4 locations. The half-moon plug, around the cam shafts and over the half moon plug. I did put a VERY light dab of RTV on the spark plug seals to hold them in place well when I changed my valve cover gaskets.

Edit: As for tightness you want it just a little tighter than finger tight (2.5 ft/lbs - 3.6 ft/lbs). If you can get that much, your good to go. Sounds like you over tightened them.

 

[jongreene]

I didnt overtighten, because I can't even tighten one of them.

 

[Splitpi]

I didnt overtighten, because I can't even tighten one of them.

You could always re-tap the screw hole and substitute an apropriate size screw for the new tapping. But at some point, it seems like the screw was overtightned, perhaps by not you but by a bad shop mechanic and the threads were stripped from the bolt whole. You just didn't notice the damage was done till you started working on it But thats the best advice I can give you. Good luck.

 

[GILZTSIAWD]

http://www.plymouthlaser.com/heli.htm

 

[jongreene]

Yeah you're probably right, because this is my first gasket change Ive done on this car so whoever did it before me must've foobared the hole...Thanks for all the help and thanks for the heli link.

 

[3134]

i have oil leaking into one my sparkplugs and also i have oil residue on my turbo and around my oil cap. What is possibly the problem and how much am i looking at to fix it??

 

[jongreene]

This was happening to me about 2 weeks ago. Get a valve cover gasket KIT, comes with VC gasket , 4 spark plug well gaskets, and the half moon gasket. I replaced all of those= problem solved. Cost was around 36 bucks at advanced. goodluck

 

[dragrush]

There is a O ring on the oil cap and is going bad, that could be where some of the oil is coming from

 

[Eastwood95]

yeah, if oil is leaking around the oil fill spot, and into your spark plug well, check the O ring gasket on your oil filler cap.........its known to leak after time. You can either buy a new gasket by itself or a whole new cap. Dont bother with the ebay oil caps, they leak brand new........

If the oil is covering different spots around the turbo and valve cover, I would also check the dipstick. You could be blowing the dipstick out when your at WOT. You can crimp the top of the dipstick tube with pliers, or get a used or new 1G dipstick to replace that plastic POS dipstick.

Go METS........

 

[darrennovacek]

i would definatly check the oil dipstick first! i just put new uicp, intake piping, and bov it my car and on my first test drive it was smoking like crazy after a couple of blocks of driving and when i opened my hood there was oil absolutetly everywhere. i was so worried that something really major was wrong with my engine. so anyway i would always check the cheapest options first before you do anything drastic.
darren

 

[2bclutch]

Definately agree. Replace your oil cap with a $3-$4 one from autozone or somewhere like that and check the dipstick. I'd wipe all the oil off from around the sides of the valve cover and then drive it kind of easy for a couple minutes and then see if there's any oil running out from the edges, if so then you more than likely will need to change out the valve cover gaskets.

 

[ddavisaf]

Do not crimp the oil dipstick tube.

If you're blowing out your dipstick, it's for a reason. And that reason needs to be fixed. Whether it's because of excessive crankcase pressure, or simply bad o rings, it's something that should not be ghetto rigged.

 

[amp9211]

Mine was doing the exact same thing and I replaced the valve cover gasket, the o rings and the half moon and that helped out a lot. I then went to an auto parts store and picked up a new oil filler cap because they didn't have just the gasket. For kicks, I tried to take off the old gasket from the cap and replace it with the new one. It was so hard and plastic-like that it just broke into several pieces when I tried that. Since then, I haven't had any problem with oil leaking around there.

 

[perley03]

alright...found out i was missing a exhaust manifold bolt and oil was leeking out and burning on the manifold. i was like WTF where is all this oil coming from??
so i pulled the plugs because it was skipping at high rpm and when i pulled #1 plug wire i saw the hole was filled with oil. so i pulled 2,3,4 and they were all the same. full of oil. so i pulled all the plugs out, turned it over a few times, and left the plugs and wires out and wiped them down. is my valve cover gasket shot? its brand new last year, hardly driven because the guy who owned it before me hit a deer and parked it. before he hit the deer he lost the timing belt and bent the valves so it has all new valves, seals, and guides, tbelt, headgasket and valve cover gasket.

Any ideas???? Before i bring out the Louisville Slugger and go to town?

 

[Staytuned]

Did you put the little donut shaped gaskets back around the top of the spark plug wells?

 

[kenamond]

alright...found out i was missing a exhaust manifold bolt and oil was leeking out and burning on the manifold. i was like WTF where is all this oil coming from??
so i pulled the plugs because it was skipping at high rpm and when i pulled #1 plug wire i saw the hole was filled with oil. so i pulled 2,3,4 and they were all the same. full of oil. so i pulled all the plugs out, turned it over a few times, and left the plugs and wires out and wiped them down. is my valve cover gasket shot? its brand new last year, hardly driven because the guy who owned it before me hit a deer and parked it. before he hit the deer he lost the timing belt and bent the valves so it has all new valves, seals, and guides, tbelt, headgasket and valve cover gasket.

Any ideas???? Before i bring out the Louisville Slugger and go to town?

Missing an ex. mani. bolt isn't going to cause an oil leak. Probably have oil leaking from your VC down onto the mani.

Like StayTuned said, there are five total gaskets for the VC. One goes around the edge, and four circles go around each spark plug well. Either you forgot them or didn't torque things down well or somehow messed up something installing the VC gaskets.

 

[perley03]

well i didnt install the top end. the guy i bought it off of did all the work when he owned it, so i have no idea what he did. im ordering a valve cover gasket kit that comes with the 4 donut shaped gaskets and the valve cover gasket. do you guys think this is where the oil is coming from that is leaking out from the exhaust mani? its the top bolt on the left side and you can see oil bubbling out from the heat. its not leaking from the outside of the valve cover gasket, i just cleaned it off earlier today and watched it idling and its definatly coming from where that bolts goes. thanks for the help guys much appreciated.

 

[Staytuned]

Well all the bolts on the VC go through a piece of the VC gasket or one of the donuts around the spark plug wells......so if you replace it all and torque the VC down nice and evenly with the proper torque specs you should be alright.

 

[brodiedehass]

Missing an ex. mani. bolt isn't going to cause an oil leak. Probably have oil leaking from your VC down onto the mani.

You have 2 chicklets I am surprised you didn't know this: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=229782&highlight=manifold+stud+oil

 

[kenamond]

well i didnt install the top end. the guy i bought it off of did all the work when he owned it, so i have no idea what he did. im ordering a valve cover gasket kit that comes with the 4 donut shaped gaskets and the valve cover gasket. do you guys think this is where the oil is coming from that is leaking out from the exhaust mani? its the top bolt on the left side and you can see oil bubbling out from the heat. its not leaking from the outside of the valve cover gasket, i just cleaned it off earlier today and watched it idling and its definatly coming from where that bolts goes. thanks for the help guys much appreciated.

I have a 2g, so maybe it's different on a 1g, but there are no bolts on the exhaust mani. They are all studs threaded into the head with nuts holding the mani on. The top left one might hit an oil galley or something (don't know). If I'm right about the studs, you can order a new stud set including the nuts. I'm not sure if you want to replace all of the studs and the mani gasket or not, but unless that hole is stripped, you can atleast put a stud/nut there.

If you look at the two pics in this tech article, you'll see what I mean by studs (look at the lower right side of the first picture to see a stud in place, and the 2nd picture shows a few holes in the head where studs were already removed. Again, this is for a 2g.

You should ask the 1g community what their take is on oil coming out of the stud hole in the head. Might be a problem, might be normal, but you should try to find out which is the case.

 

[perley03]

well the thing is its not coming out of the hole itself, rather leaking around the exhaust mani gasket where that bolt is missing. im thinking oil is leaking down into the cylinders and burning and leaking from where there is no pressure from that bolt or stud. i've never actually looked to see if it was a stud or a bolt. anyone who has a 1g can you tell me if this bolt (top left bolt on exhaust mani) is actually a bolt or a stud??

 

[kenamond]

You have 2 chicklets I am surprised you didn't know this: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=229782&highlight=manifold+stud+oil

I just bribe ppl for rep points. I actually made a guess about a stud hitting an oil galley, but it was a guess. He said it was the top left stud, not the bottom middle one, so is there multiple studs hitting oil passages in the head? I've pulled and reinstalled the mani+new studs+gasket once, so that's my 1st hand experience, and it went off without a hitch.