1993 Honda Accord - Oil Leaking - Estimate too high?

Hello.

I drive a '93 Accord that just suddenly and unexpectedly crapped out o
me today. I had it towed to a shop where I was told that I was leakin
oil onto my spark plugs. He told me that I would need to have the spar
plugs, distributor, and valve cover gaskets replaced, and quoted me
price of nearly $900.

Does this sound reasonable to you

 

It sounds like it is leaking oil from the valve cover gaskets into the
spark plug wells. This is a relatively minor problem which can be
fixed by cleaning out the oil and replacing the gaskets. If the plugs
are old, might as well replace them also. Figure $50 in parts and an
hour labor. The distributor is expensive and some of this vintage are
known to fail. You need to find out why he thinks you need a new
distributor.

 

Depends. Why do you need a whole new distributor? Is it because they can't
figure out if the igniter or the coil has failed?

 

not to me.

oil in the plug holes doesn't kill spark so that's not the reason the
car died. as said by others, more likely igniter or coil. a whole
distributor can run maybe $500, new honda oem, but if it's just the coil
or igniter, much cheaper. whole reconditioned distributors aren't too
expensive either.

the parts to fix the oil leak are about $25.

 

Older Accord like yours are vulnerable to spark plug tube o-ring
failure. It is a common seal failure on older Hondas. The four o-rings
are between the top of the cylinder head and the rocker arm tower. The
tubes fill with oil and the oil soaks through to the plugs. Repair of
this alone would run a few hundred dollars in my estimation, mostly
for labor.

For more discussion and a drawing, see http://honda.lioness.googlepages.com/oilinthesparkplugtubes
.. Tegger has a site that covers this, too. You can take the spark plug
wires off and look in the tubes and see whether oil has accumulated
there, yourself.

As for the distributor, I suspect they are not 100% sure of their
diagnosis and so are giving you a worst-case estimate. Forego any
distributor work for now, unless they give you more reason to work on
the dizzy. Report what they say here first.

 

I'll be sure to ask. Thanks

 

To pop the valve cover off and stick four o-rings on it? Even with
cleaning out the oil and replacing the plugs and wires it shouldn't
take more than an hour.

 

I had somebody email me recently asking this question: While doing this
repair, what's the best way of getting the oil out of the tubes?

I've never had to do this myself, so I didn't know for sure.

Suggestions?

 

i just take the plugs out and let it run into the pistons. sure, you
get a puff of smoke when you restart, but it's gone in a moment and the
job's done.

 

I just wrapped a paper towel around the end of a flat tipped screwdriver and
wiped the holes out (with the plugs removed) the last time I did it.

 

I think you are confusing the seals in the valve cover (not actually o-
rings) with what are actual o-rings further down in the spark plug
tubes. See the drawing at the top of the site I linked in my first
post in this thread. The o-rings that are much further down can only
be replaced by taking off the rocker arm assembly.

 

On 4/6/09 7:19 PM, in article [email protected],

E. Meyer:

jim beam:

I figured it had to be pretty simple, but just wanted to check. Thanks.

 

don't over-do the thinking on the seals there elle. the lower o-rings
rarely if ever leak. the upper ones do because the rocker cover comes
off for maintenance. the lower ones remain undisturbed for the life of
the vehicle most times and thus don't leak.

 

I agree the upper ones fail more often than the lowers. But from
reading reports on this here and at other Honda fora, ISTM one can
expect those lower seals (= the o-rings) to fail between around 100k
and 200k. Especially if the tubes have significant oil in them, the
lower seals (o-rings) are highly suspect, IMO.

Regardless, it is easy enough to just replace the upper seals (the
ones in the valve cover) and then monitor the tubes for further
leakage.

 

without them showing to you that these parts don't work? absolutely not.