Rarely do I pay a mechanic to do anything on my car, however last year when I needed the timing belt done I ponied up to have it done by a mechanic. The guy who did the work for me has been a personal friend for something like 25 years, is ASE certified, and is probably the best mechanic I know. He did the job at his house, and took his time doing it, in short, I know it was done right.
I was in a hurry to get the parts for the job, and money was tight, so most of the parts came from Auto Zone. Among those parts was a valve cover gasket set, which included the upper and lower spark plug tube seals. The job was done just about exactly one year ago.
This morning, I set out to change my spark plug wires, as the ones that were on there looked like they could perhaps be the original equipment from 1994. I got a nice new set of NGK wires, raised the hood, and pulled off the first wire. There was something sloshy and wet about the sound that first wire made coming off the spark plug, and I knew it wasn't a good thing. Low and behold, it was covered with oil. For just a moment, I wondered to myself if that could be left over oil from the previous leak, after all the tube seals were all new. Sadly, a quick look down the hole confirmed that oil was leaking from the upper tube seal. And so it went, down the line, every one of the upper tube seals is leaking, Of course, it's hard to tell if the lower ones are as well.
Lesson learned, the Auto Zone gasket set isn't such a good deal, next ones will come from Honda. On the positive side, the paint is peeling off my valve cover, so I guess this will give me the perfect excuse to sand it down, and repaint it while I am changing the gaskets.
I was in a hurry to get the parts for the job, and money was tight, so most of the parts came from Auto Zone. Among those parts was a valve cover gasket set, which included the upper and lower spark plug tube seals. The job was done just about exactly one year ago.
This morning, I set out to change my spark plug wires, as the ones that were on there looked like they could perhaps be the original equipment from 1994. I got a nice new set of NGK wires, raised the hood, and pulled off the first wire. There was something sloshy and wet about the sound that first wire made coming off the spark plug, and I knew it wasn't a good thing. Low and behold, it was covered with oil. For just a moment, I wondered to myself if that could be left over oil from the previous leak, after all the tube seals were all new. Sadly, a quick look down the hole confirmed that oil was leaking from the upper tube seal. And so it went, down the line, every one of the upper tube seals is leaking, Of course, it's hard to tell if the lower ones are as well.
Lesson learned, the Auto Zone gasket set isn't such a good deal, next ones will come from Honda. On the positive side, the paint is peeling off my valve cover, so I guess this will give me the perfect excuse to sand it down, and repaint it while I am changing the gaskets.
WAGONS
When I do the job over, I will be carefully torquing the fasteners to factory specs.
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