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Spark Plug With White Stuff

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  • #989307

    Hello guys,

    My brother owns a 98 Honda Civic LX Sedan, and today we took out his car’s spark plug (NGK ZFR5FGP G-power Platinum). There is a ton of white stuff on both electrodes. Picture links below (if you see the photos upside down, you can download them to view them correctly)
    https://sites.google.com/site/dakerfobo/home/SP2-1.jpg
    https://sites.google.com/site/dakerfobo/home/SP3-6.jpg
    https://sites.google.com/site/dakerfobo/home/SP3-8.jpg

    Does it look like the engine is burning some oil, and that causes the plugs to get so much white stuff (some kind of carbon build up) ?

    The sparking side electrode seems to still be intact, but I don’t know if we should replace those plugs. However, if we replace those plugs while the car is still burning oil, the new plugs will still get a ton of white stuff on the electrodes again.

    We did notice his car’s engine oil get used very quickly, and we noticed distributor area had oil leak. We replaced O-ring from valve cover to distributor and the O-ring seal inside distributor housing last month, but these sparks plugs seem to tell us the oil is not only leaked.

    BTW, he has been having catalyst converter problem where the integrated exhaust manifold had a crack on the exhaust pipe which won’t pass California smog test. He had the cat replaced few days ago.

    Can anyone help to give some suggestions on what may be wrong with his car base on these info ?

    Please let me know if there’s info we should gather.

    Thank you for your help

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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  • #989312
    Nightflyr *Richard Kirshy
    Participant

      You didn’t mention the vehicle mileage or how long the plugs had been installed.
      Considering by your description concerning the oil usage.
      Is there excessive blue smoke from the exhaust?
      You may want to do a compression test to see the state if each cylinder.
      Next do a leak down test to note if you have any issues.
      If the engine passes both tests and reads with in spec.
      You may have issue with valve guide seals leaking or clogged oil rings

      #989325

      The car is about 140k+ mileage, and he bought it used in 2017, so we don’t know why the car is at that low mileage, and we don’t know when the plugs were put in.

      There’s no excessive blue smoke, but some white smoke when the car is 1st started in the day. Also, I noticed yesterday there is small amount of water in the tail pipe that seemingly keeps on coming out, but very small amount.

      We are looking at if PVC needs to be replaced or not, and if we can take out the breather box to clean or replace it. It’s kind of hard to do this without a jack.

      With the age and mileage of the car, I don’t think my brother is going to spend much if he needs to fix the oil issue.

      #989326
      Nightflyr *Richard Kirshy
      Participant

        There’s no excessive blue smoke, but some white smoke when the car is 1st started in the day. Also, I noticed yesterday there is small amount of water in the tail pipe that seemingly keeps on coming out, but very small amount.

        This is common enough on most vehicles.
        If you were burning coolant you would see clouds of white vapor from the exhaust.

        But you state excessive oil loss but no excessive blue smoke at the exhaust which means one of two possibilities.
        1 Your passing oil into the cooling system which seems doubtful
        2 Your leaking oil while driving.
        In which case a good inspection of the under carriage for oil would be in order.

      Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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