Oil and Coolant in the Plug Wells

[JaredJHuffman]

95 ATX

I found oil in my plug wells the other day, so I suspect I will have to change or at least check the valve cover gasket. It does seem to be leaking. The funny part is that I also found coolant in the back 3 wells (towards rear of car). Any ideas why that might be?

 

[slimsho2469]

im not sure if it would end up in the plug wells but i guess i can see it being there at the same time but if u have a blown head gasket on ur rear bank that could be the culprit. just an idea what does anyone else think?

 

[ohfosho]

well oil is the usual suspect if you havent changed your valve cover gaskets and plug well seals in over 40 k miles (+ or -), but coolant...

im not sure if it is possible to get coolant in the plugwells, but dont rule it out (i guess leaky heater lines could get it there, but im not sure of the location of the lines off the top of my head), i would suspect water from heavy rain, or large puddles splashing up, or maybe you washed the engine recently?

 

[Off Road SHO]

Coolant probably just leaked from somewhere onto the top of the valve cover and then got sucked down when the engine cooled. Like the oil, once it gets in it can't escape. Don't worry too much about it, just get new seals.

Tom

 

[clindahl]

Being on the back of the engine it is quite possible that it leaked from the supply or return of the heater core, so as others have said don't worry too much about it, clean it up and replace the seals to correct the oil problem - hopefully the coolant was a 1 time thing (from a leaky hose, etc).

 

[SHOtimer]

Just make sure you clean out all of the oil and coolant (along with the other crud in there) before you take the spark plug out - you don't want that stuff in the combustion chamber.

Doug

 

[luigisho]

I agree 100% with the above. Sediment collects at the bottom and will flow into the cylinder if you don't clean it out before removing the plug.

 

[JaredJHuffman]

Ok, thanks a lot. I cleaned it all out right when I found it. I will redo all of the gaskets and hope that the oil doesn't come back this time. I'm gonna just assume the green stuff was a fluke if no one is worried about it.

By the way, I had this problem a few months ago, but can't remember if we replaced all of the gaskets or just tried to seal them with some kinda gunk. This time I'll use real gaskets for sure.



Also, with regards to cleaning them before taking the plugs out, this would've been nearly impossible. Some of the wells were quite full and I don't have shop vac. The paper towels weren't cutting it, so my buddy who works a repair shop in town showed me a secret technique. He cycled the engine with the plugs out and the wells clear; this shot all of the oil out of the wells (pretty funny to see actually). You really have to have the right touch with the key to not break anything though (or so I'm told).

 

[LeddZepp8687]

Sounds like a headgasket issue to me, but I dont understand why it would be in the wells.

Get under the car and open up the radiator drain **** but drain some into a bottle. If it looks milky then you've got a headgasket issue.

 

[SHOtimer]

Also, with regards to cleaning them before taking the plugs out, this would've been nearly impossible. Some of the wells were quite full and I don't have shop vac. The paper towels weren't cutting it, so my buddy who works a repair shop in town showed me a secret technique. He cycled the engine with the plugs out and the wells clear; this shot all of the oil out of the wells (pretty funny to see actually). You really have to have the right touch with the key to not break anything though (or so I'm told).

That right there is why my SHO doesn't go to mechanics...

Doug

 

[quikSHOilver]

Also, with regards to cleaning them before taking the plugs out, this would've been nearly impossible. Some of the wells were quite full and I don't have shop vac. The paper towels weren't cutting it, so my buddy who works a repair shop in town showed me a secret technique. He cycled the engine with the plugs out and the wells clear; this shot all of the oil out of the wells (pretty funny to see actually). You really have to have the right touch with the key to not break anything though (or so I'm told).

It isn't even nearly impossible, there are few ways to drain oil out with plug intact... cheap way would be to obtain turkey baster and suck it all out then spray berryman in it let it soak some then suck again and blow it dry with air compressor (air dry if don't have air comp will take while tho') You can also obtian hand pump siphon from any auto store that have tube that is small enuff to go in between plug and well, pump it up like there's no tomorrow.

I question your mechanic's knowledge... I wouldn't let him work around my car!:laugh_ti: