oil on my spark plug

[mikey_S13]

ok so i pulled the motor recently to install a few things and to clean up the engine bay..before i pulled it, motor was running fine. except i had a minor water leak (from one of the heater lines) on my last drive. other than that, no smoke or anything.

i got pretty much everything back together now back in the car and tonight i changed out the spark plugs...first plug i pull from cylinder#1 had a coat of oil on the threads and on the electrode part. i checked inside and can see a little bit of oil sitting on the piston and some around the area where the plug screws in.

now could it be possible that oil kinda dripped in there while the motor was tilted from pulling and installing it back in the car?? i didnt have the valve cover fully tightened down. just screwed on by hand.

what do you guys think??

i know other possibilities could be:
bad piston rings?
valve guides?
blow-by?
bad valve cover gasket (the O-ring gasket)?

[blksylv]

i have the same prob, spark plug holes never seal, every time i take the vc off to replace the gaskets or re rtv em it moves to a different cylinder, ive just come to terms that i can never get all four to seal at the same time lol. id try tightening the vc and see what happens

[PoorMans180SX]

i have the same prob, spark plug holes never seal, every time i take the vc off to replace the gaskets or re rtv em it moves to a different cylinder, ive just come to terms that i can never get all four to seal at the same time lol. id try tightening the vc and see what happens

Why are you putting RTV on your valvecover gasket? You only use it on the half-circle caps, the rest of the gasket should seal itself, and the gasket surface should be clean.

To the OP, if it is fresh oil (not a coat of black, burnt on oil) on the spark plug, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If the plugs are black and it looks like it's been burning a bit of oil, then it's probably ring or valve guide/seal wear.

[mikey_S13]

Yea looks like it was pretty fresh/clean oil

[mikey_S13]

Any idea of how oil got in there??

And is there a way of cleaning out the oil in the chamber without takin off the head??

[blksylv]

Why are you putting RTV on your valvecover gasket? You only use it on the half-circle caps, the rest of the gasket should seal itself, and the gasket surface should be clean.

To the OP, if it is fresh oil (not a coat of black, burnt on oil) on the spark plug, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If the plugs are black and it looks like it's been burning a bit of oil, then it's probably ring or valve guide/seal wear.

ive tried it with and without rtv and it still doesnt seal. i clean the spark plug well surfaces everytime with the same end results

[mikey_S13]

ive tried it with and without rtv and it still doesnt seal. i clean the spark plug well surfaces everytime with the same end results

yours is probably what poormans180sx said, probably ring or valve guide/seal wear.


ive been lookin into combustion chamber cleaner..good or bad idea??

[VNG704]

speaking of cleaning the combustion chamber, seafoam. But that is only to clean, it doesn't fix anything.

[blksylv]

yours is probably what poormans180sx said, probably ring or valve guide/seal wear.


ive been lookin into combustion chamber cleaner..good or bad idea??

meh i doubt it, it doesnt smoke and has 0 blowby with good compression, its leaky gaskets, just more of an annoyance than anything

[Mi BEAN]

I did a compression check on a friends rb25 and his number 6 has what looked like clean oil with some burnt oil. I thought bad rings right away but he researched it on his phone and read that its possible but another possibility is that its fuel. Something to do with too much fuel and it sits in there and itll look like oil. You can taste it and see....no jk..or am i? anyways ill ask him tomorrow for the link so i can post it on here for you to read.

[Sileighty_85]

^^^if its fuel hit it with a lighter and see if it lights up.

Usually its pretty easy to tell the dif between oil and fuel

[awdlv2xlr8]

you can take the spark plug out that has the problem, bump the ignition to turn the motor over and it will blow the oil out.