I noticed my A/F meter was a little on the rich side so I pulled a spark plug and it was drenched in oil!

I pulled a second one and it was a nice mocha color. The tird and fouth were also in good shape.

What does this mean and how do I fix it?

 

did you check the spark plug o'rings in the valve cover?

 

I second that. I had that happen to me. My oil leaked through the round gaskets on the valve cover.

 

That happened to me... it's the 0-ring that goes between the valve cover and the head for the plug cylinders.

 

Which side of the plug is the oil on? Is it on the top where the plug wire connects or the side that sits in the combustion chamber? That info might help.

 

yeah i have this REALLY bad on cylinder 2...but my engine burns a crazy amount of oil anyway. whenever i pick up a torque wrench i'll probably want to paint my valve cover, so i'll replace that one seal while i have it off.

 

Think about it - "oil on my spark plugs", does it sound good?

 

yea those seals between the valve cover and spark plug chambers on my friends EF always leak on his 3rd cylinder. even after we bought brand new one and put them in the 3rd still leaks and he burns a lil oil as well. i gotta find a good way to seal that thing up sometime

 

use a little bit of honda bond on it. (where the seal makes contact with the spark plug chamber)

 

wtf does a torque wrench have to do with your valve cover????

 

Duh... torqing the valve cover to specs

 

last time i tried to put a valve cover on without a torque wrench, one of the posts that the crown nuts thread onto BROKE OFF and i had to replace it. i have no interest in making that mistake again, i wasn't even turning it very hard.

 

Yeah, i broke 3 of those the first time i took off my valve cover. I don't use a torque wrench now, I'm just way more careful.

 

i was surprised you have to be so gentle...but then i remembered that my car (at the time an 88 crx) had almost 200,000 miles on it

i'm beginning to learn there's no sense doing things if you don't do them the right way. i figure a torque wrench is a good start.

 

The oil is in the combustion chamber, not where the wire goes on. Is this still the o-ring?

 

no, unless it somehow drained downward through the spark plug threads.
You should be able to tell if your plugs are getting soaked inside if you burn blue smoke.

 

There 2 possible causes for oil in the combustion chamber. 1 possible place is the valve seals. Symotoms of leaking valve seals are smoking when the engine first warms up. Another place is oil can pss by the piston rings. Do a compression test to see if you loosing pressure through the rings. Is it smoking/burning oil?

 

don't forget about the third and fourth methods of getting oil in the cc, blown head gasket or cracked head/cylinders.. doing a compression test will let you know what cylinder is bad but you'll have to do a leakdown test to find out what's causing the compression loss..

and about torquing the valve cover nuts to spec, just grab a 1/4" ratchet and use that to snug them on..