Oily and burnt spark plugs (pics 56k ok)

[97&02camryleI4]

97 Camry LE I4 with 51k miles.

Valve seals are leaking oil along with blue smoke during cold start. Hoping someone can explain what's happening to these spark plugs. Engine runs fine along with compression numbers of 205-200-200-205 across. I believe they may be changed once or not at all since they are platinum. Some of the spark plug wires had oil on the bottom (hard to see in pic but it's brownish colored). Notice the 4th spark plug, it's clean compared to the other three.

[userlain]

Try NGK Copper plugs. Gap @ .043

[atobe]

looks like you have a valve gasket along with the spark plug gasket going bad too.. that leaks oil on top of the spark plugs it's nothing really. i have the same problem with my engine 1 of the spark plug gasket gone bad and the spark plug's up in it's butt in oil. i'll get it changed soon.

[atobe]

ok i looked around and it's called 'spark plug tube seal' it comes with most valve cover gasket kits if you do it yourself

[97&02camryleI4]

A service center actually just replaced my valve cover gasket along with my oil pan gasket. I'm not a big diy'er so if I wanted to get the valve seals or spark plug tube seals fixed it would cost around $700-800.

[Mike Gerber]

At 51,000 miles I doubt whether you have leaky valve seals. There are 4 large nuts under the spark plug wires that hold the cam cover and gasket and spark plug tubes tight. I believe they are 30MM (they might be 32MM). Take the plugs out again and clean the oil out of the bottom of the spark plug tubes. A rag wrapped around a slotted screwdriver works well for this. Just be carefull not to drop anything through the spark plug thread holes into the engine. When clean, reinstall the spark plugs (clean them along with the spark plug wires too). Now tighten those 4 big nuts to 27 foot pounds in 9 pound increments (9 foot lbs., then 18 foot lbs., and then finally 27 foot lbs). Your problem will probably be solved. This is a common problem on 5SFE engines. This is really easy. If you are not comfortable doing this take the car back to the service center who installed the cam cover and ask them to do it, but make sure they use a torque wrench. They probably did not torque those big nuts to spec when they replaced the cam cover gasket.

Check again for oil down there in a few thousand miles. I take one plug wire off and use a long white colored wire-tie as a sort-of dipstick for this task. Takes about 1 minute to check.

Mike