trailor

Ok so I removed my intake manifold today and found it a bit shocking that one of my spark plugs was literally sitting in a puddle of oil. It is the one before the one closest to the firewall on the drivers side. I have had no smoking, no bogging, no negative impacts on driveability. The reason i'm taking the intake out is bc the bottom of my thermostat housing was leaking, but i doubt that would have anything to do with this problem.

I know the first thing you're gonna tell me is to run a compression test. My question is, what other potential causes are there that I could check out first? The previous owner told me that the PCV valve was replaced shortly before I bought the car, so while that should not be the problem, I may end up replacing it anyway. Anything else???

The car seems to have been pretty well maintained throughout its life (especially since I've owned it), seeing as how the previous owner got every recommended dealership service from the day she rolled the car out the lot til about the 60k mile svc. The oil and filter have been replaced every 3-5k miles with synth oil. It has 102k on it now.

Thanks in advance for your help!

petrock

Do you mean that the electrode of the spark plug is covered in oil, or that the outside of the spark plug (the hex-nut etc) is covered in oil?

Blackvenom01

i will assme that the spark plug channel was full with oil therefor the boot was right?? i would say the sprak plug seal on the valve cover leak and under compression it pushes oil into there...

cliffyk

There is no plug bore/cam cover seal on the 2V, the plug bore is open to the outside world.

Trailor, if the plug was tight then I would first suspect that oil somehow got spilled and made its way into the plug bore (cylinder #7 BTW).

If the plug were loose then it is possible that oil from the cylinder could be force up into the plug bore, however it strikes me as very unlikely that it would puddle up in there...

trailor

blackvenom, you're correct in your assumption. when looking down into the plug hole, there is oil puddled up to the bottom of the terminal (not covering it, just up to it). cyl #8's spark plug appears to have a small amount of oil in it as well, although it is not puddled and seems to be very minimal, esp compared to #7.

i'm hoping you're correct cliff in that perhpas oil spilled back there, i just don't know how or when it could have been spilled at that part of the engine, although i guess its the most alleviating thought.. i took your advice and bought a torque wrench and will be torquing the plugs back to spec after i take them all out and clean them off a bit. i guess i will just hafta clean out the plug hole and reassemble everything, then check it again after 1k miles or so. Thanks for the quick responses!

cliffyk

That's what I'd do at this point, though if you have a compression tester you might get some peace-of-mind (or maybe not!) by checking at least #7...