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Hi! I was hoping someone might have some ideas about an issue my car seems to be having. A couple months back, I bought a '92 SS with 198000 miles, manual trans, td04 upgrade and FMIC. Just today I got to doing a spark plug job and when I pulled the old ones out, I found them covered in oil. For most cars, the solution is a new set of valve cover gaskets but it doesn't look like these engines are designed to seal the spark plug wells by any kind of gasket I can see. Am I right thinking new VC gaskets won't stop a leak in there? If so, what are some possible issues I might be facing? It doesn't blow blue smoke and doesn't appear to lose oil at any significant rate. Any thoughts? Thank you guys so much in advance for any help!

I guess my first question would be is, are the valve cover gaskets leaking? Was there oil in all the spark plug holes or just certain ones?

My suggestion would be to address any known oil leaks first and then monitor to see if you're still getting oil in the spark plug holes. It's possible the oil was in there from past leaks or just age, so cleaning up the leaks and pressure washing the engine so you can find & fix leaks would be a good course of action before digging into a bunch of extra work or concern that isn't needed.

Legacy777 wrote:I guess my first question would be is, are the valve cover gaskets leaking? Was there oil in all the spark plug holes or just certain ones?

My suggestion would be to address any known oil leaks first and then monitor to see if you're still getting oil in the spark plug holes. It's possible the oil was in there from past leaks or just age, so cleaning up the leaks and pressure washing the engine so you can find & fix leaks would be a good course of action before digging into a bunch of extra work or concern that isn't needed.

Yeah, it looks like they do leak. I suppose oil could have possibly seeped from the top of the VC's and into the spark plug ports or something.

All except cylinder #2 had oil in it. Does that indicate anything?

Great advice -- I was going to do VC's today. I'll clean things up good, keep an eye on them and report back. Thanks so much for the help! Crossing my fingers that it's not something too serious.

No, the fact cylinder 2 didn't have oil in it doesn't really indicate anything.

When you do the valve cover gaskets make sure to replace the grommets that the bolts go through that hold on the valve cover. Also, on the driver's side replace the o-ring for the oil filler tube.

Legacy777 wrote:No, the fact cylinder 2 didn't have oil in it doesn't really indicate anything.

When you do the valve cover gaskets make sure to replace the grommets that the bolts go through that hold on the valve cover. Also, on the driver's side replace the o-ring for the oil filler tube.

Yup! I did replace those as well. They were included with the FelPro gasket set I got so that's nice. Thank you for the heads-up about the filler tube. I'll pick up one up as well.

I really appreciate all the help you've given me and everyone else here on this forum, Josh. You're the man!!

I've driven the car about 50 miles or so since the gasket replacement and the spark plugs are completely dry. It looks like you called it Josh! Thank you!

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Great to hear!