Hey guys, I've got a question about some work that I'll be doing next weekend. I have a 1996 DX civic with a D16Y7 motor and lately it's been rough to start. It starts, but only after a few moments of hesitation. I pulled one of the spark plug wires intending to check the plug and had a lot of oil spill out. It seemed like the wire-cap was creating a suction and sucked out a gulp of oil when I finally popped it off of the hole. Now, I know that I'll have to replace the valve cover gasket and the o-rings on each spark-plug well, but my question is about the amount of oil in the well(s). Do I need to do anything special to ensure that the oil doesn't make it's way into the cylinders and hydrolock the motor? I've only pulled one wire so far, but there was a lot of oil in that one well. Before I pull the plug out, do I need to just dry the oil out with a cloth? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

 

Replace the four oil seals in the valve cover.

 

Oil isn't going to hydrolock your motor. I'll seep down through the rings. It'll burn. It won't hydrolock.

 

So I'll be fine with replacing the seals/o-rings and replacing the spark plugs with a pool of oil in the well? I'm sure it will make sense to me once I get in there, but I can't start the work until this coming Saturday so I'm still totally ignorant to some of the aspects.

 

There are no/zero/zilch O-rings to replace.

How much oil (~volume) are we talking about?

 

Sorry, I'm referring to the seals. I need to take a look tomorrow to see exactly how much oil is present. When I pulled the plug wire earlier I was shocked to see the oil come out, so I quickly put it back on. I haven't taken a look inside the well yet. I'll find out in the morning.

 

Yes, you'll be fine replacing the spark plug seals and valve cover gasket (they're sold in a kit, and you aren't supposed to re-use the valve cover gasket, so whynot.jpg). If you're really worried about it, let it sit overnight after doing the work, before running the engine, but don't worry too much about it.

Do replace your spark plugs and spark plug wires with NGK hardware. The plugs won't function at 100% after their oil bath (and they're cheap as **** to replace), and the rubber insulation around the plug wires isn't particularly fond of being soaked in oil and heated as it has been. Consider it preventative maintenance.

 

Thank you for the replies, fellas. I intend to do the job right and replace everything affected by the oil with quality parts, I just wanted to be sure that I wouldn't hurt anything if I let any oil seep through.

 

I got everything installed this afternoon. Plug 1 was the only one with oil in it, and it wasn't a huge amount. The spark plug seals were all in terrible shape when I removed them, so I'm glad to have them out. I had some smoke on start-up after I finished the job, but I drove it down the road and it stopped smoking shortly after I started driving. I'd like to get the distributor o-ring replaced, but one of the bolts stripped as I was removing it, so I'll address that this weekend.