Dziri

Hello,

I am about to replace the valve cover gasket myself. So I purchased the gasket (12341-PLC-000) and 4 spark plug tube seals (12342-P2A-005, first diagram below) from HondaPartsNow. But I noticed they also have something called "ignition coil seals" (second diagram below).
What is the difference between these 2 types of seals in these diagrams? Do I need to buy 4 ignition coil seals too?
Also, how do I know if my vehicle is equipped with lower tube seals without having to remove the rocker arm assembly. I was reading that some Civics have them, while others don't. There is no mention of them in the 2001-2010 Honda Civic Haynes repair manual.
My Civic is a 2003, 1.7L 4-door EX 5MT, engine code D17A2.
Just hit 140,000 miles :-)

Thank you for your help.

ezone

No, each of these (#2) are attached to the coil and stay with the coil. .They are primarily a dust and water seal, not an oil seal. I would not replace unless damaged.


If you picked item #1 (I did not check your part numbers), that comes with all of these plus the bolt seals #14 in a single package


D17xx engine does not have them.

Dziri

Thanks ezone. I appreciate the quick response and help.

Are you referring to this? (rubber boot).
If so, a coil rubber boot looks nothing like the seal in the second diagram. The ignition coil seal in diagram #2 looks very similar to the spark plug tube seal in diagram #1.



True.Should've done that instead.

I was very happy to read that. One less headache to worry about, lol

mikey1

you dont need to replace the rubber seal in the pic above as ezone stated, unless its damaged or broken, its only a dust seal,

the spark plug oil seals go into the valve cover around each hole opening, you can't see them until you remove the valve cover and look at the inside of the valve cover

ezone

No.
That boot seals the coil to the spark plug to prevent high voltage leakage. If it becomes separated from the coil, replace the coil.
Move your arrow to the left

Slumpertcivic

Dziri

Thank you again for your help.

Saturday and Sunday weren't very cold (no garage), so I took advantage and worked on the car, outside
It wasn't easy (I'm no pro). I had to remove the air filter housing, among other things, to be able to remove the valve cover. Very tight spaces,
The old round seals weren't that difficult to remove, but inserting the new ones was a real pain.
The old ones were very stiff, but no breakage.
The old cover gasket, however, was in good condition: no breakage, no holes, no rigidity or "discontinuity"and felt just like the brand new one to the touch. It just had some RTV on those 4 corners where it turns sharply.
So since the old cover gasket looked okay, I really hope the oil leak is caused by the round seals If not, it's possible that the culprit is the head gasket (I so hope not).
It took me 5 hours to put everything back on the engine. Never did this before. First time using a torque wrench, too.
I was too tired when I finished (I drive 2 hours one way to work, 5 days a week), so I didn't even start the car afterwards. Plus the new RTV I put in those 4 corners needs to harden overnight.

This is the second week I am driving my landlord's car to work. He went abroad just when I started having problems with the Civic (flashing check engine light when the car reaches 55mph or so). Thank goodness his car is also a stick shift (I don't drive automatic). And man, what a powerful little car (2012 VW Golf). I will let you know how the Civic does when I test-drive it.

This video is just about a very clean 16-year-old Civic valve cover
Shot before I removed the old round seals.

mikey1

if your spark plug seals were leaking, your spark plug holes would be filling up with oil, i dont think those are your problem,

maybe take a pic of the leak?

Dziri

No Mikey. The tubes were not filled up with oil.
There was just a little bit of oil inside tube#3 (cylinder #3) a couple of weeks ago when the check engine light came on. The code was for a misfiring in cylinder #2 though (which was clean/dry inside). So I replaced both coils: in cylinders 2 and 3, and replaced all 4 spark plugs. Coil #3 was dirty (brown sticky substance, which I assume was oil). Check engine light was still saying cylinder #2 misfiring. I even replaced the VTEC solenoid (painful!) with a brand new one because before I had the check engine light for the misfiring, the previous check engine light was about an oil leak problem caused by the VTEC solenoid. I also replaced the PCV valve, the cam plug, and removed and cleaned the EGR valve (carbon deposits and greasy brown substance around it (oil?) and put it back on using a new gasket.
There is no visible oil leak inside the engine (aside from that greasy oil you see on top and behind the valve cover) and no oil under the car/on the ground. But it's definitely an oil leak from somewhere because when I did the last oil change (January 2), I couldn't believe only a few cups of oil were drained, and it was black (I did exactly 9,002 miles on synthetic oil before that. Will never wait that long again. Synthetic or not). I hope the car hasn't been consuming fuel mixed with oil. Is it possible that the car is burning oil?

Anyway, I'm starting the car today to see if it will even start after the valve cover gasket and spark plug seals job I did last night (lol) and see if the check engine light comes on.

Here's a vid showing the top of the engine after I removed the cover and cleaned the mating surface. Do you see anything abnormal as far as amount of oil in there?
(Irrelevant, but you can see the new VTEC solenoid at the start and then at 00:40).

mikey1

of course its possible, how often are you checking it?

i check my oil and my tires every weekend, even in my brand new 2018

if you driving 4 hours a day like you say, i would be checking the oil 2 times a week

those ignition coils on these engines dont fail very often, most last the lifetime of the car, so i doubt they are your problem,

Dziri

I gotta admit I don't check it as often as I should, especially in my situation (approximately 600 miles a week, for work).
I agree about the coils: I bought two of them ($60 each) for nothing (even the oily one, #3, ended up being just fine).
Man, congratulations for your 2018 Civic. My dream.
I love the modern look of the Civic!
I pulled over on my way to work on January 11th to record the 140,000 mark

mikey1

very nice.....here is a pic i took of my odometer in my 2005 in 2016.....in Kms

Dziri

wow! At first I thought it was miles, lol
300,000 kms is 186,411 miles. Car was 11 years old, so you drove 16,946 miles a year. Be slightly gentler on your 2018, lol
I am not the original owner, but mine is 140,000 miles. 15 years old. So the average per year is about 9,333 miles. So yours is almost double mine. The Civic is so reliable (when taken care of).
Are you in Canada? I drove to Montreal (in my Civic) several times. 420 miles north of me. I am from Algeria originally. I go there to visit friends (and eat great food) when I miss my country, hahaha

mikey1

yes im in canada,

i had my 2005 since brand new....was an excellent car and i was a bit sad to see her go, i sold her last november with about 350,000 kms

but im loving my new 2018

Dziri

She's still on the road, I'm sure.
With regular oil changes (like you've been doing apparently), your new baby will last a very long time, and enjoy the tech inside! Knowing your tire pressure, for instance, on the dashboard is science fiction to my Civic!😀

ezone

Are you trying to fix oil leaks?

Cam plug and 2 gaskets on the vtec valve are very common causes of oil leaks

Dziri

Yes. Oil leaks.

What I did so far...

Replaced the cam plug
Replaced the VTEC solenoid (whole thing, not just the gaskets)
Replaced the PCV valve
Removed and cleaned the EGR valve and replaced the gasket
Replaced the valve cover gasket
Replaced the tube seals (4)
Replaced all 4 spark plugs
Replaced 2 ignition coils (cylinders 2 and 3)
Even drained the radiator and refilled it with fresh coolant.

So I got a chance this Saturday and started the car to see if I messed up anything after all the work I did on it, let alone if it fixed the problem. It started very nicely despite the cold and not having been driven for at least 2 weeks. I didn't notice any oil leak (so far). No check engine light at idle. No rough idling.
Inspection expired at the end of January, so I was going to take it for inspection and... boom! After just a mile or so of driving, the check engine light came on flashing immediately as I reached around 3000 RPM in 4th gear. It's hard to describe how the car felt, but it was like it started losing power. I pulled over immediately and returned home at low speed.

I then used a scanner I bought recently (BlueDriver) and it's the P0302 code again (cylinder 2 misfire).
I am now left with checking one last thing before I'll have to tow it to a pro: fuel injector #2. If it's indeed the culprit (I hope), I'll replace all 4 with new ones. If not, it's a ton of other possible causes whose repairs are costly: timing belt, cat converter, head gasket, internal engine damage, etc. And I hope that's not the case. This car is literally my life line (work). Can't afford a new one.
What pains me is that the car "only" has 140,000 considering its age (2003).

OEM fuel injectors aren't cheap: $95 each on HondaPartsNow. But I found others at half the price ($45) on RockAuto. Here's the link. Can anybody tell me if they're as good?

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=1002663&cc=1415663&jsn=368&jsn=368

I have exactly 1 more week of using my landlord's car before he comes back. So please somebody tell me what you think about the quality of these non-OEM injectors as soon as you can so that I place the order immediately and have time to work on putting them in.

Thank you.

P.S: screen shot of RPMs at idle at operating engine temperature. That's about 700 RPM or so. Normal?

Slumpertcivic

Dziri

Dziri

Here's some live data being recorded at idle with the engine warmed up.
Can anybody see anything abnormal? (
Among other things, is the slightly fluctuating RPMs abnormal?


Also, I noticed some droplets coming out of the exhaust.
Touched one drop with my finger and smelled it. Hard to describe, but it didn't smell like gasoline.
Is it just water?
I've seen other cars producing that white smoke too. Don't know if this is also a bad sign.
Temp outside was about 35F.


Finally, I also noticed some oil around the hole where the dip stick goes.
You can actually see very tiny droplets of oil being squirted out of the hole as soon as I pulled the stick out.
The dip stick is also oily all the way up, where it twists.
Is this normal when the engine is running?

Dziri

Hello,
I finally replaced the fuel injectors (painful job) with 4 brand-new ones.
Old injectors 1, 3, and 4 looked clean, but injector 2 was very dirty (black substance/looked like carbon deposit). So I was excited that the replacement would fix my cylinder 2 misfire code that's causing the check engine light to flash.
It didn't
I didn't drive more than half a mile when the check engine light started flashing. Again.


So I went to Harbor Freight and bought a compression test kit and tested the cylinders. This is probably the last thing I try before I'll have to tow the car to the mechanic and hear the kind of news no one wants to hear.

These are the test results.
Note: the Haynes Repair Manual states that the values should be 128 psi *minimum*, with a maximum variation of 28 psi between cylinders.
As you can see, what I got was way higher than normal. But at least all values (around 150 psi) were almost identical for all 4 cylinders (with a slight higher value for cylinder 4).
Would this at least suggest that the 4 cylinders are still healthy and that it's not a blown head gasket or worn piston rings or valves?
Or is this cheap compression kit not reliable?

Finally, is it possible that the problem is a vacuum leak somewhere near cylinder 2? or perhaps a clogged EGR passage in the intake manifold (carbon deposit, etc) for cylinder 2? a bad timing belt or dead catalytic converter?

This problem literally exhausted me...

Thanks again.

MN-02-CivicEx

FWIW, a couple of the neoprene ignition coil boots on my 2002 Civic Ex had loosen/deteriorated three years ago to the point that part of them remained in the bottom of the tube when removing the ignition coil. Of course i had to retrieve the pieces before removing the two spark plugs which wasn't easy. I actually removed the other two neoprene boots from the other two ignition coils. IMO it their necessity bordesr on overkill (not necessary).

Another thing i noticed is that each of the bottom ot the spark plug tube wells had some oil around the spark plug (some more than others) that had leaked in from the valve cover tube seals. When i removed the valve cover eventually figured out all four tube seals were put in upside down which apparently contributed to oil leaking down into the tube and around the spark plugs. Eventually there was enough oil around one of the plugs that it started to misfire. Another thing i noticed is that even when installing the tube seals correctly in the valve cover that if you push them into the cover as far as possible it's too far. The result being (at least on my engine) that the lip of the seal just barely fits over the tube following the instructions and/or a DIY youtube. Don't push/force the seals in as far as they will go into the valve cover. I used a socket just the right size to drive them in far enough to secure tightly with slight tapping on the socket with hammer You can still put them far enough into the valve cover that they will stay in place. The result is that the seals will then fit just far enough over the spark plug tubes when replacing the value cover so that you should never get any oil leaking down into the spark plug tubes.

Would agree with ezone that the above is certainly not recommended by Honda, but it makes sense to me. Sometimes, mechanics (possibly even Honda) because of their rush to finish a job they accidently put the valve cover tube seals in backwards (upside down). Also, i put a good deal of thought into the purpose of the nepprene boot and as far as its purpose being to keep out "dust and water" it's my opinion that's malarkey.

MN-02-CivicEx

AGAIN, it's very possible that ezone will say it's me that's "backward" and putting in the tube oil seals upside down. If that is true than the instructions that come with the tube seals is wrong, the instructional youtube is wrong and the Honda mechanic that agreed with me is also wrong.

ezone

I can't see it from here!
FWIW it should be easy to figure out if you stare at the seal and see how the taper of the inner (lip) must be able to easily slide over the end of the plug tube.

MN-02-CivicEx

YES! Like most everything once you know how it's done it becomes easier to master with deft quickness, like riding a bike.

Suspicious subliminal thinking going through my seasoned noodles-- after removing the valve cover and getting a close look at the lips of those damaged seals. Also whoever put in those upside down seals and replaced the valve cover didn't have that deft touch of the innate skill set of a seasoned pro (e.g. deftness of a Wayne Gretzky, Aaron Rodgers or Danica Patrick) when it comes to deftly reinstalling the 7th Gen valve cover with precise quickness. The lips of all four seals were damaged (torn/sliced from slightly noticeable to obvious) which resulted in engine oil leaking down into the spark plug tubes. I'm no professional mechanic as i took my good-ol' time (3 days total) as it was my first attempt replacing the timing belt from very beginning to final finish. I'd be fired if it took me even 8 hours as a Honda mechanic; whereas ezone would breeze through the replacement while whistling (if whistling a merry tune were allowed in a Honda dealership).

Dziri

MN-02-CivicEX,

For me, putting the new tube seals was a little more difficult than removing the old ones.
Some people do make the mistake of putting them on upside down.
This is the only vid I found that shows how to install them properly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Very long story short, and painful/costly experience...

Car was towed to the shop on 2/23 (expired inspection).
No idea how it passed with the misfiring problem, but I didn't complain.
He said he adjusted the valves and re-gapped the brand-new pre-gapped NGK plugs that I had installed.
Check engine light (solid mostly, but flashing often) came back soon after I left the shop.
I go back, convinced after tons of research that the intake manifold is carboned up. He does the Seafoam thing. Doesn't work. He doesn't bother to actually remove the manifold and physically remove the carbon deposists.
He says he has no idea how to fix the problem. So he recommends another shop.
I go there. They tell me what I already knew (engine clogged with carbon). They use a de-carbonizing machine and concluded without any proof that the cat must be clogged (they want 800 bucks for the cat plus labor, in case I choose to do it. Too bad he'll never see me again). They clear the CEL ("of course") and sure enough, as soon as I drive away, the CEL comes back flashing much more frequently than before. No only that, now I hear this rattling/knocking noise in the engine, and it's getting worse and worse the more I drive the car. In other words, the car went in this shop with 1 problem, and came out with 2.

The light now flashes every couple of minutes or so (there is no solid CEL. It flashes, disappears, flashes, disappears, constantly).
Not going to drive the car and cause more damage until I either fix it or bury it.
Still driving a friend's car to work, for now.

During this whole time (over 2 months), the only codes were misfire codes (mostly cylinder 2, but also all 4 cylinders, or 3 of them, or 1/2/3/4/random at times). No codes related to the catalytic converter or anything else. Just misfire codes. Right now, it's cylinder 2, which is how it all began, over 2 months ago.

About this rattling noise, could it be a faulty knock sensor even though the OBD2 isn't showing the code for it?
Note: knocking noise only during driving. Not at idle.

P.S: I got the timing belt, tensioner and water pump. A coworker knows a mobile mechanic who says he'll do it for 250 bucks. We'll see.