Oil seeping out of plug holes?

Never encountered this one before, and I would appreciate any ideas/help. There's oil leaking out of two plug holes on my 170cid inline six Ford. Didn't have a chance to really check it out before it got dark, but it's been bothering me so I thought I'd post up.

I'm thinking that it might have the wrong plugs in it and that the washers might not be seated.

I just bought the truck, so I have no idea which plugs are in it.

The truck currently pings a little bit, so I think it's also losing some compression. I'm guessing that if the wrong plugs are in it, that would account for the compression loss, but if anyone has had a similar problem in the past I'd love to hear what caused it.

Thanks a bunch.

 

Eh, thanks.

 

I've owned a few 144/170/200's over the last few years, and never seen that... I would think plug size might be off, or look closer to make sure the block is not cracked around the plug holes... that would suck shit. Are the two plugs next to each other?

 

Haha, yeah they are. Damn, hadn't thought about that. I guess on the plus side these things are cheap.

You just prompted me to go outside with a flashlight. haha

 

Okay, my memory failed me. The oil seems to be coming from #1 and #3. I also just noticed that there's about a quart too much oil in the engine.

 

Is it possible that it's just oil from the valve cover and it looks worse around the spark plugs because somebody may have put an excessive amount of black "anti-seize" on the threads when they screwed them in? Clean oil might look clear, but then turn into an ugly black mess where it mixes with the anti-seize. Or a leaky carb might have dribbled gas down on there where the gas could have mixed with anti-seize to make a similar oily looking mess? Just an idea, because I can't picture oil coming out of spark plug threads. Sorry, I don't have a lot of experience with straight sixes though.

Try running the engine in total darkness. Sometimes if you have like a cracked insulators on some plugs, you can see arcing shooting out the sides of them to the head. To check for leaks around the spark plug threads, you can hold a piece of rubber hose up to the spark plug and the other end in your ear and it'll sound like a loud ticking or hissing sound every time it fires.

Maybe you can find out what the correct spark plugs are supposed to look like. It could be you have tapered seat plugs when you should be using the kind with soft metal flat crush ring type seals (or vice versa).

Good luck

 

It's comming from the valve cover.

 

Thanks guys. I'll look into everything mentioned. I did touch underneath the valve cover lip, though, and it's dry. I'll try to eliminate all possibilities one by one. Thanks for the help!

 

Valve cover bolts were on finger-tight! I have a feeling that the problem is solved. I'm finding a lot of Mickey Moused stuff under the hood that I'm going to have to deal with. Nothing major, just lots of little things.

Thanks again for the help.