Oil leaking through plugs?

[pisnapalm]

i've been working to restore this old engine and there're afew issues left i haven't found in search...for one, i gotta get rid of startup smoke (used to be evaporated antifreeze from warped head before block sealant job, now oil) that my grandad said could be valve guides (oil seeping into combust. chamber through these). but my dad said since it doesn't blow smoke as much after super cold nights(oil thickens), he thinks that the oil seeping out of valve cover gasket (about to replace this) is leaking into the plugs...i'd like to know if this is possible...?
also...tach needle frequently drops to zero for afew seconds then corrects itself. (heard of random jumping but this?)
this car's got 360,000 in it, if i fix it i can drive it...much thanks yall.

...also have general electrical, low-idle/stall, loose clutch, and overall compression issues but i think i found threads for these.

the newb,
ty

[smufguy]

Welcome to the forum man.

Since u have a carb, i would say try cleaning up the carb and if u dont have emissions in Texas, u can rip the emission stuff out.

as for the tach, its usually the dist so try swapping it to another one (even an efi dist would work) and see if it fixes the problem.

Since my motor used to be a carb and went thru hell, i always use engine restore in addition to oil everytime i change my oil. This product actully works and seals up a lot. Unlike Stop smoke, it does not block oil passages. Try that and see if it stops the smoke. Cars do run rich under warmup so it could be that ur car is just running a lil richer than usual and its that smoke. As long as ur not burning coolant u should be alright.

oil on plugs? Well if ur leaking oil thru the valve cover, u can clearly see it. There are three places we leak oil from. Valve cover, Distrubutor and Cam gear. The Cam gear side is the cam seal that usually wears out and its the same for the distributor O ring that fucks up every single time. These are cheap parts and the cam seal is the only hard one to put in. Valve cover gasket is also readily available and easy to put on as u know.

If there is too much oil on the plugs, i suggest that u remove the plugs and see how the electrode looks like. For a normal plug, it should look anywhere from Golden Brown to black. Anything other than like, chipping, white or scuffing or what not would indicate abnormal combustion product. I would suggest to pull the plugs our every three months (every oil change) and inspect them and clean them.

Also do a tune up if the car has not had one. Just a regular one, fuel filters, all fluids, valve adjustment, wires, gaskets and any other regular maintanence.

These motors are hard to kill even if they are drinking up 3 quarts of oil every week.

[AccordEpicenter]

wow I used to have those same gold MSW wheels until i sold them on ebay... I almost miss them

[86LXItooFAST4me]

im thinking if you have compression issues and the oil in the spark plugs, it may be bad rings. the valve seats is a nother cause of this but have you done a compression test yet? and have you done any kind head job?

[smufguy]

normal compression for 300rpm and WOT is about 185psi across all cylinders. Even with the pressure lower than the normal is not bad, but it will be bad if its above too much.

[86LXItooFAST4me]

i had a buddy one time that was changing out his plugs. they all looked fine till he got to #4 or #5 (forgot which one but it was on a corsica) and it was just CAKED with oil. it looked like someone took the SP and jammed it into a bunch of clayed oil. anyway, it turned out the rings were bad on that one cyl. it was crazy.

[pisnapalm]

thanks for the response!! i just checked the plugs recently during the beginning of the engine restore, #3 had cracked porceline but besides that they didn't really look gummed up (however at the time there was antifreeze spitting out of the head and burning on the exhaust manifold)...this may be the answer then, that it's not seeping into the plugs. smuf mentioned the oil treatment, and i like the sound of that. i used lucas on my D16Y8 awhile back and knocking disappeared. i used block sealant on the accord cause i couldn't afford a head job, that worked perfect as well, and only cost 7 something dollars.
smuf, do you think i could get by w/o swapping a dist? if it's gonna be an issue later on i'll do it. but i don't mind the tach thing so much now that i've priced afew dist
my DAD did a compression test on this car at 200k and was told he had low comp in 2 of the cylinders. it's just an old engine, it'd b best to get a rebuild or a junkyard swap but the car's only worth afew hundred bucks.
my weekend job won't support ricer dreams so i've resorted to any cheap redneck fixes i can find...bah.
the thing runs now and it took afew days but so far spent $9 lol

[smufguy]

Well our cars are not that great with additives. Like no additives in the coolant, no fancy additives in the oil, no fancy additives in the tranny no cool additives in the pwr steering fluid. yeah, our cars are moody with stuff like that.

Well, its not just ur tach, if its a dist problem, u could be not firing right later on. I mean i dont wanna push it on ya, but i got spear dist for like 10 bux cause its either i throw them out in the trash or someone grabs it from me for a dirt cheap price like this.

Anyway, dont put any block additives or anything, Ur in TN and a lot of members are from around your state. Getting a new head is not bad. I have seen lots of guys have spare parts lying around and some of em have engine parts so ask for a new head in the Market place Section and see what turns up. ALso if you want put it on ur signature too so people can pm u and let u know.

Sometimes these cars can have bad blow bys and consume oil that way. Even tho i dont really know the reason behind it rather than abnormal pressure build up. Im saying this cause my car never drinks oil, but the last oil change i got only about two quarts out and my PCV was all oily. My friend told me that its normal, but it was making my throttle plate stick too much. SO i have disabled it and have to see how it is now.

I would say if u have a warped head, its better that u switch it, its not hard all u need is just a couple of tools and the know how and thats it. Hope u can fix ur problem soon.

[86LXItooFAST4me]

Well our cars are not that great with additives. Like no additives in the coolant, no fancy additives in the oil, no fancy additives in the tranny no cool additives in the pwr steering fluid. yeah, our cars are moody with stuff like that.

true that!! in my engine pull and head job, my water journals in my block were all jacked up and coated with all kinds of BS. looked like copper seal or bars leak i guess. the radiator had a few leaks and im guessing the previous owner did know what the hell he was doing (that wasnt the only BS i found on the car) but yeah, if you put in coolant additives and what not, you are temporarily fixing the problem but causing a slow death.

[AccordEpicenter]

yeah i bought an accord that had a badly warped head (.11" up between cyls 2-3) and the headgasket had all of the water jacket holes plugged up badly, looked like copper seal or solder seal etc