I recently got a gen 1 CRV with a B20Z engine, a lot of oil has leaked from the vicinity of the left hand size(when looking at the engine from the front)cylinder head/valve cover, it may not be a particularly serious leak just the previous owner probably left it to leak for a few years.
I can't see an obvious place it leaking from but from what I have read seems that the rocker/valve cover on these engines has a tendency to leak.
It seems to be weeping out of that big rubber grommet, the grommet is quite loose in the cover, I can move it around/rotate it quite easily.
There isn't any other place it could be leaking from as the valve cover gasket is clean all the way round

 

That plug you're looking at is called the "rear cam plug". The other cam has a distributor on the back which seals it, but you obviously only need 1 distributor on an engine so the exhaust cam is sealed with this cam plug. It's a very common leak point and I replaced mine last fall with this part:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/GENUINE-REA...NaBDKj&vxp=mtr

There's an o-ring just inside the bore there that gets brittle and flattened over time. The new part comes with a fresh new o-ring that will alleviate any leaking coming from that interface. You can remove the old plug with a flat-blade screw driver or a pick tool, but be careful. The plastic will probably be very brittle. If you break a bunch of chunks off the outer ring of the plug and it hasn't popped out of the bore, you'll quickly run out of places to pry on and then it'll be a pain to remove. Work the top gently, then go 180 or 90 degrees from there and work another section gently in order to "walk" it out instead of putting too much force at one location. The fact that the head is dry above that plug means your valve cover gasket isn't leaking...at least not on that corner of the engine. Hose that lower section with brake cleaner after you replace the plug and then check back frequently to see if the leak continues. It could be coming from a few different places, but that rear cam plug is almost certainly one.

 

Thanks Matt, after cleaning around that plug it definitely seems to be pissing oil from the plug, thanks for the link.
Do you think one of these aluminium + oring plugs will work, better looking/more durable and just about the same price:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/B16-B18-B17...4383.l4275.c10

 

Yeah, it probably would work. Installation looks much more involved though because it looks like you're taking off the valve cover and that last cam bearing cap to fit this thing in. Also, it's a China seller so it's probably 1-2 MONTHS delivery time. I bought radiator hoses from China once. I started to question if the combustion engine would still be relevant by the time they actually showed up.

 

True that, I'm patient though, maybe I'll order one and if it looks like a well made/useful solution I'll fit it the next time the valve cover needs to come off.
Then again maybe not, these plastic ones are removable without the valve cover coming off which can save a lot of time and money vs the aluminium one leaking and the whole valve cover needing to come off. The aluminium one does have triple the orings so maybe a leak will never be an issue.

Have you tried the chinese clone plugs, 2 for the price of one, hard to get a basic part like this wrong and I've generally had good experience with chinese clone parts: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-PCS-12513...t/292340646579

The ebay link you posted says genuine but from my experience it's probably just a clone, or else the seller would have put a pic of the original honda packging with part no in the listing.

 

This was the first time I've ever had to replace one of these plugs so my experience is only with that part. It seems to be working just fine so whoever made it did a fine job with it. I can guarantee that it's a "Genuine Cam Plug"...it's not a spark plug...it's not a butt plug...and it's probably not a "Genuine Honda" part. And yes, the fact that these direct replacement ones pop right in without removing the valve cover means that if you don't mash up the old one too bad coming out the replacement is literally a 2-minute job. It doesn't get much easier than this. It's obviously up to you though. It hasn't broken the 32F mark here in MD for 2 whole weeks. I can guarantee you if it were my car that needed the cam plug I'd be doing whatever required the least amount of under-hood time.

 

I've decided to go with the plastic part, ordered it from my local Honda dealer becuase the price isn't much more than eBay and I can pick it up in 3 days.
Be cool to have a oil free engine, the sump gasket seems to be weeping a bit but there were some very loose sump bolts so I re-torqued them to spec using the star tighten pattern so that will hopefully sort that out. The sump gasket looks like its rubber and not cork/paper so hopefully it responds favourably to a re-torqued.

 

Hopefully that'll get you all sorted out then! I've worked for a few different dealerships as well as an independent and I'd have to say Honda/Acura has about the least leaky drivetrains in the industry. I don't know if it's their manufacturing processes or their gasket designs or what, but they generally stay pretty dry on the under-side. At 170k my CR-V has some mild oil pan seepage that I don't think twice about, and that's about it. It shouldn't take much work to get yours back in order, and it looks like, based on your engine mount post, you're finding the places that these are weakest. Check your rear trailing arm bushings also. That's another common wear part.

 

Thanks Matt, I continue to be blown away by the build quality of my 1999 CRV, it has 136k miles on and just about everything seems to be running at spec incl the engine, the engine still runs as smooth as a swiss sewing machine. Also none of the bolts are seized or dodgy and the engine bay is just about perfectly laid out, plenty space to get your hands in and manoeuvre parts out, such a pleasure to work on.

To think I almost bought a Audi Avant stationwagon 1.9TDI, that's what I was also looking for, I can only imagine in comparison to the CRV how difficult it would be to work on and how expensive parts would be. Thank gawd I dodged that bullet!!

 

Oh yeah...that Audi would've been a very different experience! I wrenched for Nissan, Acura, and Buick/GMC (in that order) and the Honda products I worked on were certainly the best put together and simplest to work in/under. By interesting contrast though, the INSIDE of Honda vehicles are a pain in the *** to work in! Replacing a radio sucks, in-cabin filters in the CR-V is a pain (though easier in some other Hondas)...everything is a puzzle. GM products suck to work under/on the engine/trans, but they are by far the easiest interiors I've ever had to disassemble. It's just more straight-forward. Anyway, you'll continue to be impressed by the robustness of this CR-V I think. 136k miles is a killer find and one you should definitely hang onto. I bought mine with about 70k miles and I've put nearly 100k on it. It never lets me down and I've hauled stuff to the dump, loads of firewood, loads of retaining wall block from Lowes, many many mountain biking adventures, I transported a 5hp snow blower from my parent's house 150 miles away...it's just endlessly useful and typically getting 26-28 mpg, what's to complain about?

 

Yeah loving it!
I just finished redoing the engine mounts, that after cross threading one of the rear mount bolts, the most inaccessible mount located down in the depths of hell, luckily managed to clear the thread and finish the job. The thing that blew my mind was I could change the rear mount without removing anything else, wasn't totally easy but it would seem they designed it like that.
Now it pulls off so smoothly, bliss. When I got the CRV a week ago the clutch felt like *****, took really early and didn't engage properly, 10min clutch bleed at the slave cyl, a lot of bubbles came out and good as gold. Replacing the clutch MC and slave if ever needed will be a breeze, on many vehicles doing that entails gearbox off, many many dollars of work.