straw1628

Last night I pulled all the plugs in my car to give them a look as I tune the carb etc. Anyway, all of the plugs had wet threads, some worse than others. Does this mean anything? Is this because of flooding? It looks like oil on the threads. The plugs look dark, like they are burning rich. Thanks

urban_cowboy

Post some pictures. Wet threads could be anti-seize. Real black porcelain is rich.

trashline

could be oil leaking from your valve covers.

69mach1377

Sometimes leaky (vapor more than anything) valve cover gaskets lead to oily threads.

straw1628

There is no anti seize on the threads, I put them in. Above the plugs, below the valve covers, looks dry. Maybe the car has swine flu. I dont know. Someone had told me once it could be related to the lifters. Does that make any sense?

67mustang302

If the porcelain and electrodes are clean, then it's probably leaking valve covers.

JMD

Take care of the rich mixture, and then look into the wet threads if the issue still exists...

109jb

So how exactly do leaky valve covers get oil on the THREADS of the spark plug. At the top of the threads the spark plug seals to the head. Oil would have to get past that seal before it could get on the threads. Unless there is oil sitting in the spark cavity when the plug is removed the valve cover leak theory is a bust in my opinion.

67mustang302

Oil follows heat and can get past unbelievably small places and seals over time. And as an engine heats up and cools down and expands and contracts seals such as spark plugs move around a tad, and the oil creeps it's way through, eventually. And a spark plug seal doesn't even need to be, and may not be 100%(really the only way to have a 100% seal is to weld it together), compression and combustion occur so rapidly, that there's no time for pressure to leak down through a 99%+ seal. Plus you have oil migration as you take plugs out and put them back in.

109jb

All the stuff you said means that there has to be oil in the spark plug cavity on the head basically sitting around the plug. I would think if that were the case the original poster wouldn't have even asked the question.