Changed the spark plugs today. They had obviously been done once before unless it left the factory with NGK Irid. In two of the spark plug holes I had some definate pooling of oil above the plugs. The one directly below the oil fill cap (which I assumed was related to a sloppy oil change fill at some point until I changed the other bank and found the center forward plug hole was also filled with a fair amount of oil). Any ideas. If it was a bad valve cover gasket I would assume that there would be evidence of leaking in the other holes wouldn't it?

Very easy job by the way but the plugs were very worn after 65k on the clock and like I said unless the factory put NGK Irids in there they were probably changed at 30k or so. Took a little under 3 hours from start to finish and I did take some breaks as it was a little warm outside today.

 

I believe NGK iridiums were factory installed. look at page 22 here.

Oil has to be coming from somewhere.

 

My book has NGK Laser plats listed in it, then again, it is an 03 my and the manuals are for 02 so they must have been recycling books at the factory. Regardless, they were toast, the plugs in the x type at 100k looked better then these did.

Yeah the oil has to have come from somewhere, that's why I'm asking here if anybody has any ideas as it seems quite odd to me.

 

Each hole in the valve cover has it's own o-ring shaped seal between the plug hole bore and the head. At least one of yours is leaking.

 

probably have bad seals. i ordered a valve cover kit from motorcars for around $77.00. also, ordered stem seals for the bolts on the valve cover.

 

I am attempting to change valve cover gaskets on my 99 vdp.
changed passenger side, no problemo.
Driver side, how the heck do you get the dip stick off the stud?

 

If I remember correctly, there are 2 nuts on the dipstick bolt..... one holds the cam cover down, the other holds the dipstick down to the block. You need to take them both off. Then I just slightly pulled up the dipstick and it came up about 1 inch which was enough to allow me to rotate it to the side and get the cam cover off. I was really concerned that I'd pulled the dipstick tubing out of the sump and that I would end up with an oil leak, but so far nothing has happened

 

Be careful!
On mine after removing the nuts I had to pull and haul to get the dipstick tube over the bolt shaft. Do not remove it from the car! Just get it over the securing bolt and turn it to one side. It is a fiddly job to get it back in as you are blind to its locating hole. Line the dipstick up in its correct orientation and the tube tip should find its locating hole.