2001 alty needs serious HELP!!

TheAltyGuy · Jan 24th, 2007, 07:06 PM

Ok, so i came home from work today with the car running just fine. i left again about 2hrs later and had a stall/power loss issue. the only thing that i have been able to see so far is that there is oil that has saturated the No. 1 spark plug wire boot that runs into the valve cover. i need suggestions and recommendations so i can get this baby back on the road.

other info would include: feels like a backpressure issue, possible O2 sensors.
acted like there was water in with the oil, but it checked out fine, just gave me similar response.

Vandy-1 · Jan 24th, 2007, 11:23 PM

Did you have the oil changed somewhere where they overfilled it so it blew out the tube seal in that tube ?

LONDONDERRY · Jan 25th, 2007, 08:36 AM

Rmove the valve cover and replace the spark plug gasket << don't know the exat name

TheAltyGuy · Jan 25th, 2007, 10:14 AM

i will check. hopefully not, because i just replaced the entire lot of those gaskets. all the tubes and the valve cover. they are only 8 months old....but we'll see what happens. for future planning, if the gasket gets replaced and the oil issue is resolved....whats next if the car keeps acting up?

TheAltyGuy · Jan 25th, 2007, 11:26 PM

so the seal between the valve cover and the head is good....and each individual seal around the spark plug chutes are good too. to my suprise, i found oil underneath the no. 1 sparkplug....down in the head. the other 3 were dry. while the depth of the oil was only about 1/16" deep, i wanna know how in the hell it got there....any thoughts???

also, i hadnt thought of this, but last year an engine code popped up saying that the purge valve cannister had a minor leak in it and should be replaced. i never did that. does that contribute to this?

leigh08 · Jan 27th, 2007, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheAltyGuy

Ok, so i came home from work today with the car running just fine. i left again about 2hrs later and had a stall/power loss issue. the only thing that i have been able to see so far is that there is oil that has saturated the No. 1 spark plug wire boot that runs into the valve cover. i need suggestions and recommendations so i can get this baby back on the road.

other info would include: feels like a backpressure issue, possible O2 sensors.
acted like there was water in with the oil, but it checked out fine, just gave me similar response.

Are you sure your oxygen sensor and spark plug wires are in good condition?

TheAltyGuy · Feb 5th, 2007, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leigh08

Are you sure your oxygen sensor and spark plug wires are in good condition?

the sensors are good and i am happy to report that the problem is solved. on the no. 1 plug wire, the boot seal that seats on the top of the valve cover....it partially melted. i think it was the oil that splashed out when the oil cap came off that melted it. i could be wrong, but its a theory.

here's what caused the whole d@mn problem. the oil cap blew off, covering the entire right (passenger) side of the engine bay. a good amount of it of course on top of the valve cover near the cap. the oil seeped in through the damaged seal and down into the spark plug. since the spark plugs only seat on metal washers, there is no positive fluid seal. the oil continued to seep into the head, covering the other half of the spark plug. since the entire plug was saturated in oil (plug wire boot was filled too, no connection between boot and plug), there was no fire from that cylinder. that in turn caused the power loss (says captain obvious).

i was able to take everything apart and clean in all (valve cover boot, plug wire, plug and head), which restored the power and everything is kosher now. no further problems to report, other than the check engine light (minor cannister leak set it off). thanks for all the input, glad i feel retarded now that i discovered it was something that simple.