Oil on Spark Plugs
Hello CVOA community! Jim & Chris here as recently established caretakers of #1057. Going through the car this winter to make it roadworthy for the 2021 season. Took the spark plugs out and found oil on the threads. It looks like the oil may be leaking between the cam carrier and cylinder head, into the spark plug ports. Suspecting this is due to a gasket leak at this joint. The spark plug port is dry through the thickness of the cam carrier, and then wet down below the joint of the cam carrier & cylinder head. Tapping into the experience of the CVOA community, does this gasket leak sound logical as the root cause? Is removing the cam carrier a critical operation? Do we have to remove the camshafts from the carrier in order to remove the carrier? Is there anything else we should inspect / replace while we have the cam carrier disassembled?
Hi folks, one more follow-up question regarding the cam carrier gasket replacement. It is my understanding that to loosen the timing belt, we will need to loosen the water pump. Based on that, we will need to drain the coolant first (which at this point we will also replace the coolant and the water pump gasket). Then for reassembly, we need to use the water pump tool to leverage the water pump back into position and reapply the tension to the timing belt (as outlined in the supplement manual). We did find and order the water pump tool on Ebay, which just arrived today. This task has definitely snowballed from first glance (as newbies). Does this process make sense?