How To Remove Oil From Spark Plug Well (The Right Way) 

Using the sprayer pump is an excellent idea.

The spray nozzle is a great idea! Everyone else that I've seen use an air compressor to remove the excess oil. And since I don't have that option,your idea was genius.👍

Great idea. Definitely seems like a valve cover gasket.

the idea for the sprayer will save me so much!

Thanks for this video. I had a misfire in cylinder #6 on bank 2 when I went to do the tune-up/spark plug change. Checked ALL the other plug wells ..NO OIL anywhere. YAY! Didn't replace plugs at that time. Let my car sit for one month and a half waiting on parts & tools to come, then finally replaced the valve cover, tube seals and gasket on bank 2. Went to do the spark plug change and...DANGITTT! Now there is oil in spark plug #1 and #3 on bank #1. How is this even possible when it wasn't there before? 1 & 1/2 months of just sitting. arrrgh! So glad I found this video. But now I have some MORE work to do.😩

My 2005 Nissan Altima 2.5 SL has this same problem and I was able to get most of the oil out with paper towels and a screwdriver, but I was trying to thing of a way to get the rest of it out and I never thought of this! Great idea! Thanks!!

sweet! doing that today before i change my plugs. great tip. thank you

This is brilliant. Great thinking mate

Thank you for posting a video on the EXACT problem I need help with

This was best idea for taking out oil from well without spending extra money on gadgets. Only different thing I did was use empty water bottle to spray oil into

Good idea. That seems like a lot of oil for one day. Hopefully you fixed it soon after. Love “the little engine that could” totally stealing that idea for my daughter’s 1999 CR-V.

You are a lifesaver and yes please give us the good the bad and the ugly

Started with the spray bottle idea to remove the majority. Second, taped a sponge onto the end of a screwdriver to soak up more. Finally, used compressed air and the sponge to complete the job. What a pain! That's what I get for going 165k miles without changing the gasket!

thank you so much for the idea with the sprayer. i never wouldve thought of that

I agree on the spray bottle pump,, "AWESOME"!!

Smart idea! Love it!

Brilliant idea!

Thank you for this idea!

Great idea, thanks!

You’re a genius boss man.

"the little engine that could! " haha nice!!

thanks for the idea, I appreciate it.

Thanks for the idea. Having this issue with my 06 trailblazer.

Fantastic idea!

Dude... Thank you!!! Great solution

Great freaking idea!

Pre-2010 Toyota Camry 4-cyl engines were designed to fill the spark plug wells with oil if oil spilled over while adding oil. I just spent a couple of hours sopping out the wells by forcing shop towels into the wells with a small dowel. The pump method would have cut the time to a few minutes. Great 👍 idea 💡!!

Great idea! Genius!

Thanks God bless you I'ma try this got same prob currently but on my GTI MK5 ...

And I thought I come up with some fun different ways to do things. This is awesome great Idea and I will try a few different spray nozzles. I use a lot of the Awesome Spray from the dollar store to clean just about everything so i have a few of those I can clean out to make sure nothing gets into my wells. I am having one hell of a crappy time dealing with my valve covers lol. one bolt is asking me disconnect my break due to the break system being in the way to even view the bolt let alone the room to get to it. fun fun...lol

You are awesome! Thanks man!

Litterally this is me right now. Same Situation. Delivery driver and I had to get sent home because of this lol. But great video helped out alot

thank you so much for this

Great idea with the sprayer but really if anybody out there is getting oil into your spark plug tubes you need to change the valve cover seals and good luck if you own a trailblazer or envoy...

I am so doing this tomorrow!!!

Damn brilliant

That is some good thinking!

Pull the plugs out and hit the started for like ten seconds seems quicker to me but I think ur ways a little cleaner and love ur contribution to the valve cover GO HONDA !!!😜

Ingenious!

Hey, this video is exactly what I needed! Thanks for the clear instructions as well as a possible diagnosis!

Great idea mate 😂😂

Spray bottle top to get the oil out.•*•. Straight Genius... much props yeah

Yo good idea I got the same problem.. I'm doing this tomorrow

Thanks for excellent 💡 💡 💡 💡 💡

Ty. I was so stressed how to get most of the oil out

Can you do this before replacing the valve gasket if its in one spark plug well

I'm going to try this today!!!!

Ingenious solution using the sprayer pump

great idea... im about to post some vids on the teardown stay tuned

How did you clean the spark plug wires and boot?

Pull the spark plugs. You have to clean them(spark plugs) anyways. Then turn the engine over one time. Put a heavy rag over the holes. Or just run the car after, you'll get smoke from the oil that drained into the cylinder. I cleaned the holes with a rag and torq'd the valve cover, but the plugs still had too much oil on them that the car would hesitate.

How does a valve cover gasket stop oil from leaking down into the wells? The gasket runs around the outside of the cover and doesn't go near the tubes. There are seals at the top of each tube that you can change also. I still don't understand how oil gets down there.

You should of replaced the spark plug well seals when you changed the valve cover.

THATS A FUCKING GENIUS IDEA USING THE SPRAY HEAD BRO SAVED ME TOOONS OF TIME!!!!

Great idea! Now if I can only prevent the leak. Have already replaced gaskets once before. Thanks

cant wait to do vids like yours, like build and all, just gotta get new equipment

Ahhhhhh thank you for this awesome technique. I actually used a drinking straw and slowly sucked from the other end

I was thinking turkey baster or syringe with tubing but this is WAY better. Left handed people are very clever. Thanks.

Omg thanks dude

thanks so much for this video... helped me!

No way mate I didn't think about that good idea and cheap

i actually greased the spark plug tread and installed it and i noticed that it was treading more deep,and i found out by many guys in youtube that im not suppose to grease plugs tread,its running fine but is it too late to remove plugs and remove all them grease in it..but how do i get the grease from plugs well without the plugs in it.thank you

Got a leaky rocker cover gasket on my car think i have oil foulong the plug on cylinder 1 getting ot changed , i know that sometimes with plastic covers they can warp over time better of replacing as a pair

G.E.N.I.U.S. - My Fiat 500 Sport thanks you.

The sprayer is such a good idea. I just shoved a microfiber towel in the well and let it soak up the oil for about five minutes.

Hey this worked for me (MOSTLY. read below for luls)! It was on an 05 dodge inline 4 and someone in my family tried to add oil and got a fuckload in the first spark plug well that is an inch away from the oil cap. I didn't notice for a few months just that I was idling rough and accelerating slowly. So I thought i might need new plugs and wires, pull the first one, and the thing is filled half way up with oil! USE A FUNNELL PLEASE FAMILY! XD Soooo I tried the spray bottle trick but the actual sprayer was too thin for the oil to get out (it was one of those nicer ones from lowes that has high pressure so FYI don't use those). So I'd start spraying a bit til it reached the top of the tube then take the head off and blow it out the other end with my mouth. I could tell it was clean oil so I thought.. fuck this and just used it like a straw lol. Got it up til it was near my tongue (most of the time.. didn't have much of a taste to be honest) then blew it out lol. So, thanks for the tip! throwin a sub and a like your way my man! Definitely appreciate vids where "The bad stuff" is shown and how you fix it. Also, if anyone has read down this far, i'll share a commonly known but useful trick in case it's new to someone. When taking your spark plugs out put some electrical tape inside the ratchet to give it a nice tight but plyable fit so it comes out first time every time. Especially when its covereed in oil haha.

Damn that's a good idea.

Thanks

smart thanks. I used a compressed air chuck nozzle stuck in hole, while holding a rag over hole, i think you have a better idea.... yes i think u need a valve cover gasket and a new set of plugs.

Show us the bad, it’s real life and it’ll help the rest of us DIY Mechanics when we have problems. Thanks.

I have a '96 corolla 1.8 & spark plug #1 (not #2, #3, or #4) was submerged in oil but yet my car still starts up perfectly fine

Paper towels and a flathead thin long screwdriver worked for me, but mine wasn't a swimming pool like yours.

clever ...i did like you

Brother fix the valve cover gasket, or intake if it's around the spark plug, it can be major, can cause hydraulic lock, ruin catalytic converters if you have them, cause cylinder to misfire which cause carbon build up on cylinder walls

Lol.. this is a really smart way

Definitely a leak, Oil does not any reason being there unless you have a Leak on the spark plugs tube seal(s). Great tip on the oil extraction tool.

you said if it fills back up or you will know you need to replace the tube seals. If it doesn't fill back up where did it come from? I have seen this you going on and after two days of quite a bit of driving nothing is back in it. And it was only in one of the spark plug Wells

Just tried this on my Escape after the cover gasket and tube seals all failed. The spray pump works BEAUTIFULLY!

use the oem gasket if you can the after market tend to leak after a year or so be carefull with the felpro

Having starting problems with my integra, was yours a no crank no start? Or would it try to crank

It's Aug 8th, 2021. Was that the fix well temp fix as you say ? How is it doing?

Make sure when you replace the plug seals that you seat them properly. If you don't then it will leak I've dealt with this before in my civic

Would it help I was going to use a turkey baster?? Lmdao ..spray bottle so clever...thanks for the laughs

Smart

? Do you remove the spark plugs b4 you do all of this?

So what happened? My mother-in-law had a head gasket replacement on the whole nine Subaru legacy 60,000 miles… Has 67,000 miles I go to replace wires and plugs, pull out the first plug wire soaked with oil to the point it was dripping off. Put the socket in same thing dripping off of it. I would think it should be dry since the head gasket was replaced 7000 miles ago

THE FUCKING GOAT!!!

Your valve cover gasket needs to be replaced. Along with the o rings that prevent the oil from leaking in to the spark plug wells. Rubber is probably deteriorated, leading to the leak.

Give the sprayer a name, get a patent, make it look cool and make millions! I'm actually serious. Unless there's something like that out there already.

Hey there's oil in my first spark plugs and well and it's been like that for a week now my car doesn't want to start just keeps cranking Do u think it's the oil that's in the spark plug well causing it not to start ? I have a 2000 Honda Civic

i just use compressed air and a rag and clean up with brake cleaner, done 30 sec per

oem for the win

+Miton Films can you do a full walk around your car?

I used oil sucker to suck out oil

I gotta admit, this is a pretty great idea... but my issue is, the other day I had oil to where I can literally see my eye looking at me from the spark plug well, and today I wont to try this method, and I couldn't see anything at all... what's going on

How to clean oil out of spark plug wells on 1996 Honda Accord. Always start by doing the simplest "fix" and work your way up to the most complex "fix". 1) Go to Walmart and buy a can of spray carb cleaner ($2.50) and a bottle of Bar's Leaks ENGINE OIL Stop Leak concentrate ($7.00). 2) Go home. When your car engine is COOL, remove the spark plug wires and clean the ends with a clean rag. Spray some carb cleaner up into each spark plug wire and clean them out as much as possible. 3) Do Not remove spark plugs. Spray carb cleaner down into each spark plug well to break-up and thin the oil that has leaked into each well. Use a long thin phillips head screwdriver, or even a piece of wire, to stir-up the carb cleaner in the wells and break up the oil. Be careful NOT to damage the spark plugs. Now put a rag down into the wells to soak up the oil/carb cleaner mixture. (the spray nozzle in this video was an excellent idea) 4) When you are sure you have soaked ALL of the oil out of the wells, remove the spark plugs one at a time, and clean them, and gap them correctly. With a rag and screwdriver, wipe the wells out again before you replace the spark plugs. 5) Pour the ENGINE OIL Stop Leak into your engine oil. This will make the seals in your engine swell up, including those seals around your spark plug tubes, and hopefully put a stop to the oil leaking into the tubes. 6) After two weeks of normal driving, check the spark plug tubes again, and clean them out if there is oil in them. Some oil probably will leak into them until the Stop Leak concentrate gets a chance to recondition the seals. 7) If oil still leaks into the tubes after a couple of months, the seals may have to be replaced. But you may as well try this method first. For less than $10 and about two hours, you might fix your problem.

that my much oil 🛢 dont take rocket scientist to see the valve covers need to be replaced

Couldnt u just pull the plugs and let the fall?the oil will just burn up

Lel xD

No, BMW's are known for leaking oil. Not Honda's. LOL