95 16v civic has oil on spark plug boots

I went to change the plugs on my brothers car and found oil on 3 of the
plug boots. Is it just a bad valve cover gasket or maybe those little
rubber grommets, or is it something worse? Thanks.

 

The little rubber grommets do fail. (I replaced my 1991 Civic's for the first
time around 150k miles.) They're also known as "spark plug tube seals." They're
item 7 at Majestic's online site, http://tinyurl.com/2tl6l .

Often they're sold in a kit containing the valve cover gasket, the valve cover
screw grommets, and the spark plug tube seals.

Autozone and similar places sells such kits for around $30, but reports around
here are that the material is inferior to OEM.

Probably prudent to buy the kit and replace all cylinder cover seals, unless you
happen to have done the others recently.

My car's valve cover screw grommets failed recently, too.

 

I went to change the plugs on my brothers car and found oil on 3 of the

you need upper and lower tube seals which requires pulling the
rocker arm assembly, and resetting the valve lash when done.
Chip

 

More than likely, it's just the upper tube seals (which should be done with
the valve cover gasket). The original poster should check to make sure that
this takes care of the problem, i.e., drive the car for a week or so and
then recheck, before doing the lower tube seals.

Eric

 

it's usually the lowers on higher mileage cars, they are close to
the head and get hard as rocks. i do them everyday, do the uppers and
expect a comeback!
Chip