Oil on sparkplugs

[kennyg54]

My 1999 E39 with 80K kms on it started running like a few plugs had failed. It appears oil has leaked down onto and fouled the plugs on No. 1 and 2 Cylinders on MY Left hand side ( Mine is a R/H drive here in Australia). Apparently some sort of gasket failure. Anybody else had this problem before ? Any thoughts from you guys regarding this as a common or rare problem ? Thanks all............KennyGDownunder

[edjack]

problem. You must have a V8. I had to guess, since your sig does not specify.
Ed in San Jose. BMW CCA member since 1987 (Nr. 62319). Golden Gate Chapter. '97 540i 6 speed. Build Date 3/97. Aspensilber over Aubergine leather.

[RonaldH]

[RonaldH]

Its a bit early for valve cover gasket failure, but that is certainly the problem as EdJack said. I just replaced my 6 cylinder gasket at 155,000 miles. You also may be getting a strange smell after hard driving, due to oil leaking around the exhaust manifolds. (That's what alerted me to it.)

If you have a 6cyl, gasket kit is available that includes the 6 plug well gasket. You will also have to determine what grommets your engine uses around the 15 or so cap nuts.

Price in USA wa $60 for entire replacement, including a tube of sealant for around the 1/2 moon cutouts.

About a 4 hour DIY job - remove the ventilator duct, microfilter plastic trim and 6 spark coils. remove about 15 nuts around permimeter and 4 down the center by the plug wells. Remove a couple ground straps. Pull wire harness out of the way and make sure you remember how it goes back into place.

You should have a torque wrench, as nuts require about 8ft-lbs torque.

My leak is fixed. Oh - and the original gaskets were completely toasted after all those miles in a hot environment!

And - if you just want to experiment, it's popssible to only tighten the various cap nuts and see if the leaking stops, though that's just buying some time.

Best,
RonH