Oil is pooling on the plugs of my daughter's '93 Accord. Clearly, the tubes that are supposed to seal the valve cover from the plugs need replacing. Local mechanic wants $200. Autozone has the gasket set including the tubes for $21. How hard can it be? Is there something time consuming or particularly difficult about replacing those that I'm missing?

Thanks.

 

The upper tube seals between the valve cover and the tubes is an easy fix but if it's the lower tube seals you have to remove the rocker assembly to replace those ones. Your mechanic may be giving you the price to do both at the same time.

If your planning on trying this yourself I would suggest you buy a complete upper gasket kit and a Helms/Honda shop manual. Set aside a full day of your time so your not rushed. While you have the valve cover off you could replace all the seals and if you feel comfortable with mechanics you could also set the valves at the same time. It's not too hard if you follow the step by step procedure in manual. It's more time consuming then anything.

 

Unless someone is a complete dunce when it comes to anything mechanical, you can do this in about 30 mins with basic tools. I would say while you have the VC off, do a valve lash adjustment...but I don't know if you want to mess with that or not. But you'll be fine if all you do is the gasket.

 

Thanks pal,

I'm an ex-mechanic, but that was MANY years ago in the 80's and I don't have much time these days. $200 sounded high, and I'm guessing that's 2 hours plus parts. I see where they came up with that now. Having read this, however, I think I'll just do it myself. I'll get the book and pull out the old feeler gauge and set the valves as well.

I appreciate the help

 

thanks for the response. After reading both, I've decided I'll just do this myself. $200 comes a little tougher than it used to.

 

Yes, this in one of the easiest fixes you can do on your car. I would say it takes about 30 mins too, but since its your first time, I would say 1 hr if you are going extremely slow.
Remember to put a little RTV Silicone in the corners of the gasket where the curve is.
Mine have been leaking still after multiple valve cover gasket and spark plug grommet changes, so I put some RTV around the spark plug grommets and that solved the problem.

 

lmao......Wow 30 minutes, that may be the reason why yours are still leaking eh! I think both of you 30min guyz are forgetting about replacing the lower tube seals as well as the top ones. I would say 2 hrs min to do both.

I said a full day for everything including valve adjustment. Plus some time just in case something where to happen with the rocker assembly bolts. Some times they can be a bit tricky. Or what happens if the assembly just happens to fall apart when he takes it out. That takes some time to put back together. It's happened before, I've seen it a few times on this forum actually.

 

That 30 mins was w/o valve adjustment, just for the record. If it was me, I'd just do the vc gasket and upper seals. After having done however many working for Chrysler and a few on Hondas...9 times out of 10, that will do it. I think it's overkill to spend a whole day taking apart half of the head for a former-mechanic-light-DIYer that wants to save a few bucks...when again, in all likelihood, the uppers will do it. Just my humble opinion.

 

Gotcha

 

Ah .. see, that's what I was thinking ... how can I pull the rocker assembly and re-check valves in 30 minutes? If there is a good chance the uppers will stop the leaking on the plugs, that's what I'm doing (along with the vc gasket). I can re-visit the lowers if the leaking doesn't stop. Thanks again.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GhostAccord &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">lmao......Wow 30 minutes, that may be the reason why yours are still leaking eh! </TD></TR></TABLE>

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GhostAccord &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Gotcha </TD></TR></TABLE>

Why does everyone always have to be a smart *** know it all?? Why can't things just be discussed in a normal fashion, I have my opinion, you have yours, w/o slamming somebody else??

Anyway, good luck with your car, dafox.

 

 

You can wipe out as much oil as you can, start the car and drive it a little then come back and take a flash light and look down in there to see if it is obvious if it is leaking from the lower seal or the upper seal.
You can drive it for a day if it is not leaking fast enough.

I have driven around since I got my car with 83k miles, and I just finally got it fixed with the RTV at 150k miles, after 4 gasket changes, including two times that Honda so called repaired the problem. I had no problems with it and no smoking or burning the little oil that leaked down, because it didnt leak that fast. It was just annoying every time I try to do something with my spark plugs to have oil in there.

 

I am not going to knock anybodies advice that has been givin to our fellow accord driver/tuner. As a Honda tech, I can say that on the older model accords especially the CB and CD chassis that the o-rings on the rocker assy are by this time old and brittle. I have replaced them on numerous vehicles and every time I go to perform this repair, the o-rings "fall" apart. If you do plan on replacing those seals as well, I would suggest properly torquing them to spec as well. If you need those torque measurements feel free to shoot me a PM.

 

Just eavesdropping on this conversation. I have a 93 also and had the same oil leak onto the plugs. I bought the gasket kit and it included the large valve cover gasket, four round flat gaskets which mated nicely at the bottom of the plug tubes, and four o-rings which didn't go anywhere that I could figure out. I even looked in the Chilton manual and saw no sign of any o-rings, so I figured they were part of the kit because the kit covered other applications. Did I screw up? Where do those o-rings go?

 

Thanks pal,

I guess I don't have permissions to do IM (PM?) yet. I just joined today. If you do read this, please do shoot me those specs. sounds like I may need them.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by afreeclimber &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Just eavesdropping on this conversation. I have a 93 also and had the same oil leak onto the plugs. I bought the gasket kit and it included the large valve cover gasket, four round flat gaskets which mated nicely at the bottom of the plug tubes, and four o-rings which didn't go anywhere that I could figure out. I even looked in the Chilton manual and saw no sign of any o-rings, so I figured they were part of the kit because the kit covered other applications. Did I screw up? Where do those o-rings go?</TD></TR></TABLE>

There are two sets of 4 gaskets for the spark plug tubes. The image shown below is of the F22 Non VTEC. There are the easy to get at seals that are flat and round that go between the valve cover and the rocker assembly. Indicated by the yellow circles. Then there are 4 O-rings that go between the rocker assembly and the head. Indicated by the red circles. I'm pretty sure that the VTEC F22B1 only has one set of seals at the top of the tube.




Modified by GhostAccord at 3:40 AM 7/15/2008

 

Here is a how to.
http://www.cb7tuner.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=9300

 

Wow! Thanks. This is exactly what I need. Greatly appreciate everyone's help on this.

 

Thanks Ghost. You're better than Chilton!