I'm in a really sucky situation right now as I am trying to sell a car and buy one at the same time. But the one I am selling has a problem. It was checked out at a garage and needs spark plugs, a valve cover gasket, and some sort of wires. They said oil was leaking into the cylinders, which screwed up the spark plugs.

Im really trying to save money (no job, saving up for a different car) so I was wondering how I could do this myself and what tools I'd need. I have ZERO experience though besides knowing what some things under the hood are.

Help!

 

Options:

1. You might try selling the car "As is" and disclose to the buyer that the valve cover gaskets, spark plug seals, spark plugs, and possibly spark plug wires need replacement.

2. You can check with various mechanics on how much they will charge to replace the valve cover gasket set and spark plugs. It shouldn't be too much. The spark plug wires, if they need replacement, you can do yourself without tools.

3. You can get a ratchet and socket set, with correct spark plug socket; a service manual; and the required car parts. If you have no experience working with the car, this may not be the recommended way to go; as you don't want to accidentally drop anything inside the engine, over torque the bolts, tighten the valve cover bolts in the wrong sequence, over tighten the spark plugs or strip the threads, etc....

 

To do the job correctly, you're looking at either;
1) A proceedure which requires a shop manual, a set of tools more comprehensive than your garden variety home owner may have and enough free time to set aside the better part of a day doing it OR
2)An expense you may not well be willing to outlay, considering you're trying to sell it.

My advice: clean it up as best you can with some brake cleaner spray, some paper towels and a little labor. Type out a disclosure document and sell it. you're going to spend more money than you're going to recover.

P

 

Honestly its gonna be kinda difficult to put everything together yourself when you never have worked on an engine before.... No shame in learning at all just if you have time on your hands to spare then its gonna be needed for working on your car and learning some things!!

 

Thank you all, the info was helpful.

Btw, do you think I could substitute some soap, water, and lots of scrubbing in place of the brake cleaner spray?

 

i did this to my new to me civic at 15 years old, frankly the advice given here was bad in my opinion. anyone can easily do this, and was actually desghined for anyone to do it.



you want a 5/16" spark plug socket, pop the hood, the wires that needed repalcing are probably the spark plug wires less than $50 a set, make sure you get the positions right or the firing order will be thrown off ( not a big problem but something to avoid if you have never done this beefore)

valve cover is the actual piece that says honda 2.2l vtec lah blah blah.

take that off, iirc it was 44 inchpounnds or somshit.

everything listed here is very basic manitnce.

go for it.

 

If you want to drive down to Austin, I can help you out. This is really not that hard to do. But, you stated your funds are limited so you may want to clean it up and sell it with the clean appearance and state it is being sold AS IS with all faults.

 

no.
brake cleaner cuts the oil, soap and water will not. a $2 can of brake cleaner and a $1 roll of paper towels will work just fine.

 

Thanks again, but my dad just said we aren't gonna spend any money on it if we're going to sell it. Its got 172,000 on the odo. and were selling it in the 3000s. I will clean it up, however, as the cleaner it really cheap.

Anyways, thank you for your consideration!

-TShead