Oil on my spark plugs

Sun Sep 27, 2009 10:27 am

Was going to change my spark plugs last night, however, when I removed the cover and coil plugs, I found that the 'spark plug well' in cylinders 1 and 3 had about half an inch of engine oil in it.

Any ideas what could be causing this? I'm hoping its something simple like the rocker cover gasket?

The car had been running a little hot recently because of a leaking radiator. The radiator has now been replaced, and I took the car to a garage who tested for signs of exhaust gasses in the coolant to check for head gasket failure. The car does appear to be still loosing coolant though, I found a small puddle of the stuff underneath it which had dripped down from somewhere above the steering rack.

Cheers,

Jek

Sun Sep 27, 2009 11:10 am

Oil around plugs: Common problem - new rocker cover gasket set will cure it.
Coolant loss: There's an alloy outlet pipe bolted onto the rear of the head which commonly corrodes through, or it could be the hose connected to it, which gets neglected because it's hidden away.

Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:12 pm

Excellent, thanks Brian, will check them out!

When I first saw the oil, I thought it looked terminal!

Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:32 pm

As brian said, rocker cover gasket, its on my list to do aswell

Sun Sep 27, 2009 6:43 pm

Gonna get a gasket ordered next week I think.

That coolant pipe at the back of the head sure is hard to see/get to!

Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:11 pm

Warmed up the car and had a look for the source of the dripping coolant. It appears to be coming from underneath the throttle body. Could it be one of the hoses for the throttle body heater plate?

Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:49 pm

Jek318is wrote:Could it be one of the hoses for the throttle body heater plate?

Could be the hoses or the heater plate.
A minor power mod for your engine, which should have no downside (even considering the weather where you live), is to disconnect the coolant pipes from this heater plate completely. The hoses need to be connected together, so that coolant still flows through the pipes, rather than blanking them off.

Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:52 pm

Brianmoooore wrote:
Jek318is wrote:Could it be one of the hoses for the throttle body heater plate?
Could be the hoses or the heater plate.
A minor power mod for your engine, which should have no downside (even considering the weather where you live), is to disconnect the coolant pipes from this heater plate completely. The hoses need to be connected together, so that coolant still flows through the pipes, rather than blanking them off.

By the sounds of it, it would kill 2 birds with 1 stone as well. Nice.

Tue Sep 29, 2009 1:08 am

Can get rid of most of the hoses under the inlet manifolf if you like and have the time to do it which will eliminate any that you have cracked and persished as well as simplifying the whole coolant and breather system.