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

[LightningGSX]

No its rather cheap, like $20-$30 dollars and you can do it yourself, make sure the new gasket kit comes with the 4 plug gaskets and not just the outer gasket.

 

[jake98gst]

I did see a black rubber looking thing in cyl 4 well towards the top. Is that the valve cover gasket you mentioned? It looked as though oil was leaking from that. Also, only the top of the plug wire is cover with oil. This makes me think you right. Where can I get these gaskets from? Hopefully not the dealer.

Would this cause the Cyl 4 plug wire not to seal?

By checking the plugs and wires, I mean: taking out the plugs to see how they are and checking to see if all 4 are sealed correctly; cyl 4 never is.

Thanks again for all your help,
Jake

 

[LightningGSX]

You should be able to get the kit at any parts store or from the dealer(its not that much more).I would try a new gasket set,new plugs, and new wires, and your problem should be solved.

 

[jake98gst]

Great! Thank you again for your help!

Good luck,
Jake

 

[DSMJim]

And do yourself a favour when you get a new gasket buy some black gasker maker/sealer and add that onto the new gasket too on all the corners and edges. That will help seal it a lot better and keep it from leaking at all.

 

[jake98gst]

Where can I get this stuff from? Just like Autozone or some place like that? A Name brand?

Since I'm such a newb, I'll be following this thread pretty religiously.

Thanks,
Jake

 

[DSMJim]

Yeah anywhere like that. See the poop he is squirting in there? well dont put it inside the cover like that as the gasket wont fall out. Put it on the side the connects to the head and put it on every corner and sharp angle.

You could likely do this and get away without having to buy a new gasket set too. Mine was leaking and I fixed it this way.

 

[Frontwheeler]

Always check the easiest solution first. I had a bad oil cap that would seal up to the valve cover. Oil trickles down inot the spark plug channel in the valve cover and eventually into the spark plug holes.

If it is the problem, it means cheap to fix and about 30 sec labor to install a new oil cap.

 

[ModInProgress]

below the valve cover, where the openings are for the plug wires to go in, there should be 4 O-rings that go around those openings, if the #4 cyclinder one is bad that is what cause oil to get on the plug. It happened on my car, i just replaced all four of them for like $5 and problem solved.

 

[jake98gst]

How do I know whether the problem is the VC gasket or these o-rings? All I know is I just noticed a little black rubber circle right around where the oil was all over the plug wire. I didn't see any other gaskets, etc that any other oil could come out of.

Thanks,
Jake

 

[psychlow]

This is the bottom of your valve cover:

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(Well, actually, it's the bottom of MY valve cover.) Anyhow, the one on the right is plugged correctly, the one on the left is missing the plug.

Basically, all you have to do is take off your valve cover, pop those four out, and put in the new ones. Then bolt her back up.

Like someone said, they're like $5.

 

[jake98gst]

OHHHH, You guys are just saying that I don't need to replace all the gaskets in there if only a few are busted. I thought these o rings you were talking about were something different than the VC spark plug gaskets. And they aren't. Well, there is oil burned on the sides of the head because I assume the main rocker cover gasket is leaking, so I'll just replace them all while I'm at it.

Can anyone suggest a brand or name of a sealant I should use?

Jake

 

[psychlow]

I got the Beck/Arnley VC gasket set and tube seals from Checker, all in all it was about $40.00.

There's really no reason to use sealant with new gaskets.

 

[clownface]

hey, i was helping my friend change his spark plugs today and found oil all in his #1 spark plug well and all over his spark plug(ALOT). He got NGK iridium IX ones to put in it. he drives a 96 GS, so thats a 420a. We ended up not changing the plugs cause he figured oil messes up spark plugs and i wasnt sure so we didnt change them. we only took out the one plug but the rest of the spark plug wells were dry, i dont know if the plugs had oil on them or not though, but the one did. I was guessing it was bad piston rings, and i saw online where it could be bad valve seals also. i guess my Questions are if anyone knows of anyother causes of this??? and does oil ruin spark plugs for good, like if we went ahead and put his new ones in, or should we wait till the leak is fixed??? and there shouldnt be any oil at all in the combustion chamber right???
o and one more thing, his car sputters when it idles, is that because of the bad plug and the oil leak?????
thanks

 

[symple]

My buddy's 92 TSI had a plug well full of oil. Turned out to be his valve cover just needed to be torqued back down. When we swapped the plugs, we just got out as much of the oil as possible, popped in a new plug and it's been fine ever since.

I'm no expert, but I don't think the small amount of oil that works itself into the chamber would cause a problem...as long as it doesn't do that all the time.



--Symple

 

[clownface]

ill give that a try, ill torque it back down for him, he might have a bad valve cover gasket it looked sorta wet all the way around the bottom of the cover. but would any of this cause it to get alot in the chamber? cause there was a lot in there 2, the bottom of the plug was covered and the top of his piston appeared to have oil sitting on it. next time i see him ill give the valve cover a look, should be in the next few days, if not tomorrow

 

[symple]

How did the plug look? I mean, did oil somehow leak from around the plug down into the cylinder? Obvioulsy when you pulled the plug some dripped down if there was a lot in the well...


If it were me, I would wipe everything down as best as possible, snug up the valve cover and replace the old plug. Then I'd run it for a min or two and see if anything was leaking. Run your finger around the well seal. If you don't see anything, drive er around a bit and check again.

Someone chime in on leaking rings... I haven't had that problem (yet).


Symple

 

[GTM]

Originally posted by clownface

In all probability the oil inside the cylinder drained from the plug well as the plug was removed. As for oil leaking past the plug is on par with a snow ball's chance in hell if properly torqued.

You must stop the oil leaks, new gasket(?) new flat ring seals for the plugs.

Until those are fixed it's not going to make sense chasing other problems. After they are and the car has been driven for a few miles then do a compression check.

I don't know if the plug is bad but you have about 3 choices, clean it with gasoline, move to another cylr, replace it. Certainly having oil contaminate the outside could be causing a misfire.

Fix the oil leak!!

Cheers,
GTM

 

[clownface]

i talked to my friend, we gonna try torquing it back downand and cleaning it off to see if it wont leak, i figure we would change the valve cover gasket 2, anyone know where he can get one of these?? however it really looks to me like the oil came from inside the combustion chamber and leaked its way up into the plug well, but i hope im not right.
where can we get a gasket to put on there?

 

[GTM]

Originally posted by clownface

...
however it really looks to me like the oil came from inside the combustion chamber and leaked its way up into the plug well, but i hope im not right.
...

Is the engine running on ONLY 3 cylrs? I won't tell you I have never seen oil come through a spark plug _but_ it has be 30-40 years. I've probably changed 100,000 plugs and looked at 1 mil if any of that helps. From your description it was swimming in oil, did it look like oil or more like tar? If you swap the plugs around and it still continues to leak from the same hole then it's NOT the plug. You need to do a quick compression check if nothing more on just that cylr 150-170 should tell you all is ok there. These valve covers crack, the plug well seals leak this are known problems, sure you could have a cracked head along the threads, sure you could have a half dozen other problems but experience says this is not the usual case but you can look under the seat if you think that's going to fix the car.

Otherwise throughly and carefully clean those gasket faces, if you have to contact cement those washers on the the valve cover and wait several hours or use a hair dryer to speed it up, do it. "3M super weather strip adhesive" will work well _if_ everything is clean. If you don't have solvent for washing then use the bath-tub and all hot water with lots of soap. Then use the hair dryer and paper towels.

Use a RTV type designed to prevent oil leaks on the head side if you can't find new parts. I hope you also have a torque wrench for the cover bolts so you don't crack or warp the cover.

Cheers,
GTM

 

[clownface]

k, ill check all the seals and repace spark plugs and make sure valve cover is torqued right, new gasket, compression check and so on. ill get back to this thread once i do all that stuff, might be like 5 days though, thanks for help

 

[niko]

Just had same problem 2 days ago. It was the vave cover gasket and spark plug gaskets. super easy to change and not to expensive. any questions let me know. Car runs 100% better now.

 

[clownface]

We changed all the valve cover gaskets and got the iridium ix NGK's in there. But now we have a new problem. The car does seem to want to hold at low rpms, my friend said that when the rpms get to down to like 1000 the car acts like it wants to die, his mom called a shop and they said it sounds like we bumped a vacuum line lose, this didnt sound right to me but im still sorta NOOB at this, any suggestions??? o and his mom changed the valve cover gaskets for him, so i dont really know if this was done properly, could that be causing the problem??? if the pcv line or the other vent line where not on the valve cover right could that be causing the problem???? o and in case you dont wanna read the rest of the thread hes 420a

 

[Desibabu345]

There are a few things you need to check - did you put back teh PCV line? Make sure it isnt clogged or anything (should make a rattle noise when you shake it) Next is the ground wire going to the valve cover its like a plug (thin wire). Next is the breather hose that goes to the intake - those are teh only hoses/wires that should have been unplugged when you removed the valve cover (I did this yesterday to my car EXACT same problem 1st cyl leakage)

I need to buy a torque wrench, and stop guesstimating tightness

 

[clownface]

ground wire? can you explain where this is located? on the 420a valve cover? if that got messed up sumhow would that make it want to die at low rpm?