Note: This is a general info on tube seals, it may or may not be for your honda but I know it pertains to a lot of civics and accords and I figure someone might be in the same bind that I was in and come across this thread.

Symptoms. This was from a honda marine outboard, bf130 4-stroke. Before you start to flame me, note that this engine is a civic engine that was reengineered for boat use, it shares a lot of similar parts to many of the honda 4 cyl civics as well as the rsx and 4 cyl accord. I'm no narc, I used to own a 89 crx si and a 93 civic si eg hatch and regret selling them both .

My engine was leaking oil out of the #4 spark plug, enough that the boot actually slid off the plug itself. The engine started bogging down and right away I thought either I had a compression problem or something was going on with the plug. I saw the spark plug wire boot off the plug and noticed it was covered in oil. I stopped the engine, put the wire back on, fired it up and it resumed normal function.

I read a ton of threads on all kinds of honda engines as well as talked to techs on the 4 stroke sites and they said it was probably the spark plug tube seals that leaked oil into the tubes. Luckily on this particular type of engine the first set of seals is right under the valve cover, they touch the spark plugs. There is a second set of seals under the cam assembly which I did not touch because it appeared the oil was coming from the top of the spark plug tube. When I pulled my plugs to examine them they were clean, not wet and looked normal. I used a bit of antiseize grease on them (which is a big debate on whether it is useful or not) because I've seen a lot of plugs seize up on aluminum.

When you remove your valve cover and turn it over you'll see four black rings. It looked like these would pop right out and to my dismay the seals were so old they tore up as I tried pulling them with a pair of needle nose. I thought I could push them with a screwdriver and they tore more and then I noticed I damaged some metal ring connected to them. I was super pissed because I thought it was part of the valve cover, went inside and left the engine alone for a day (Never wrench on your car when you are angry, you'll break ****).

I read some more and somewhere there was mentioning of a metal ring that is part of the tube seals and that you can work them out with a screwdriver. Knowing I could buy a used valve cover I figured I'd try to pop them out. You cannot normally see this ring on a new seal because it is actually encased in that rubber and is on the inside of the seal.

You should use a seal puller, but I used a screwdriver and started working around the seals from under the ring. Sure enough it popped out entirely in one piece! No need to soak it in a plastic dissolver, no need to sand blast it out, no need to try to burn it, it will come out in one piece even though mine was torn to **** from trying to pull it and chip it out beforehand.

The new seals were a bit tight, but I oiled the new seal with engine oil and used a block of wood and big socket and a rubber mallet to slowly work them back in. I also took the time to replace the valve gasket even though it looked pretty good, I used Permatex Ultra Gray on the four curved spots which are noted in the manual.

If you look really close in the picture of the torn up seal you'll see that metal ring with bits of rubber all over it. You can relax if you find yourself in the same position, it's not part of the valve cover.