I recently purchased a 1990 Honda Civic LX 1.5 Sedan and recently i've been having troubles starting it. At first I thought it was the batt since it's been sititng quite some time out in the lot before I purchased it and after replacing it; it seemed to help for the first 2-3 starts after that. After sitting a few more hours it had the same problem so I thought it could be the spark plugs since the alternator seemed fine to me and after taking off the wires they were just covered in oil and the whole plug cavity itself was just soaked. After taking off the spark plugs I could see that they were fouled and needed to be replaced. So I went and got some NGK platinum tipped spark plugs and it seemed to do the job so far although lately it would hesitate before starting every so often. Im going to change the darker than dark oil shortly, but is there anything I should be looking at as well that could be causing this oil problem?

Thanks,
Gerald

 

Spark plug grommets took a crap. Common in the D15B2 with some mileage. Replace them, and the valve cover gasket, clean off your wires with brake cleaner, get new spark plugs, and you will never find oil in the spark plug holes ever again (if done right).

 

thanks!