Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Oily Spark Plug in Cylinder #1

At 61K miles, I replaced the spark plugs and spark plug wires on my 99 SE Sport yesterday. All plugs were gapped out to 0.060 or greater. Some wires looked ok, others less so, so swapping the wires (Autolite ProFit) appeared a good idea. Changing the plugs was a lot easier than I expected.. a flexible spark plug extension bought from Harbor Freight Tools for $4.99 was worth it's price 10x over.

Anyway, to my question: 5 out of 6 plugs looked ok except for normal wear and tear, but the plug pulled out of Cylinder #1 had quite a bit of oil on it. What gives? Bad or broken rings? Wouldn't that have other symptoms? Bad valve seal? Anyone else have this issue come up?

Thanks!

Oh yeah, the wires for Cyl #1 were also the ones that looked the most shot.. probably not unrelated.

Also, I haven't noticed any oil consumption.

If the plug wire did not seal the well properly, the oil may have accumulated over time.

Otherwise, the seal on the valve cover is probably starting to leak.

This assumes that the oil was on the THREADS of the plug.

Steve

Yup.. oil was on the threads, and pretty clean at that (looked like new oil on my finger.. err.. latex glove).