Hi,

I have a 2.4L 4-cylinder Hyundai Sonata ('01) and am noticing an issue with my spark plugs. The outer plugs (1 and 4) seem to accumulate oil on the top of the rubber of the wires when I pull these spark plugs wires up. It seems to be more oil on plug 1 than 4 (4 is the one with the coil covering the plug). The inner plug set (2 and 3) don't have this problem. I'm not a mechanic so excuse my non-technical terminology. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this? Thanks.

-los

 

I think you talking about engine oil getting on the spark plug wire boots. The spark plugs are installed at the bottom of wells cast into the cylinder head between the camshafts. These wells are extended by the camshaft cover on top of the engine. The boots are long plastic/rubber extensions that permit connection of the ignition wires to the spark plugs at the bottom. There are seals where the cylinder head and the cover come together in the well. These are leaking on the two cylinders you describe. The cover simply needs to be removed and reinstalled with new gaskets and seals. Is this a major problem? No, more of a maintenence nuisance, but the oil is no doubt attacting dirt and the wells should be cleaned of debrise before the spark plugs are removed for servicing.

 

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the reply. I think I follow you half-way. There is the cover that I remove which exposes the 4 cylinders. I also think I understand when you mean the rubber that I pull up that has the oil are the "boots" (someone told me they were called spark plug wires). What I don't follow is the gaskets and seals... what are these and where can I find them in the vicinity of the spark plug wire set? Also if I had to buy these and replace them myself, will it be difficult? Thanks so much!

-los

 

The boots are simply extensions of the spark plug wires where the wire connects to the plug. The graphic is of a bare cylinder head to your engine with the cover removed. Yours will have the valve train components installed, so it won't look exactly like this but close enough. The arrows point at the four ports built into the casting where the spark plugs thread into holes at the bottom. The cover has four funnel shaped tubes that extend down and match up to these ports. To keep this assembly oil tight, a gasket is placed between the mating surfaces (the perimeter of the cover and the four spark plug ports) of the head and the cover. The bolts of the cover are torqued into place. Properly installed, there should be no oil leaks from the cover. I personally smear a light coating of a high temperature silicon sealant on these gaskets before installing.

[IMG]local://upfiles/4972/5C47DC20D9AA4B3EAB0B2C131D1C9C78.jpg[/IMG]

Not very, but if you have no experience working on an engine, I think you should have a mechanic perform the work. You could end up with a larger oil leak that could be more troublesome. This shouldn't be an expensive job to have done. A mechanic also may look at the actual amount of leakage involved and may tell you the fix isn't worth the trouble.

 

Here is a schematic to a different engine that does a better job of showing the components and their relationship. The cover and cover gasket are labeled.

[IMG]local://upfiles/4972/75C60699A1294A26B58B6766ABE0DDEB.jpg[/IMG]

 

Thanks so much Ken,

I'll try to inspect the engine later in the day based on your descriptions and see if I can try fixing this myself. I'll keep you updated too.

-los

 

I had some time to take a look and am having a hard time trying to take out the cover to get to the gasket. I'm assuming I need to replace the gasket and not the cylinder head gasket shown in the second picture. The problem I'm having right now is that there are a few wires that run on the top of the cylinder cover and I can't seem to unhook a couple of them. I'm not sure if I'm even suppose to unhook them but looks like the cover won't come off unless I do. Is there some Sonata-specific picture and/or instructions that shows what needs to be unhooked in order to free up the cover. Also are there certain screws I'm suppose to unscrew to take off the cover-- there looks to be two dozen or so screws on top and on the sides of the cover. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

-los

 

Ok,

I gave it another try and I was able to unplugged all of the wires as well as unscrew all of the bolts from the cylinder cover. My new problem is, I can't seem to lift the cover off. I'm fairly certain that there is nothing bolted down... is there something else I need to do to lift the cover up? Below are some pictures I took when trying to remove the cover. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

-los

[IMG]local://upfiles/5570/C5918F69D0D64C04BC5F60502E436D51.jpg[/IMG]

 

Here are a couple more pics

[IMG]local://upfiles/5570/E964B548F4C0454D9BB584DFCB1DC160.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/5570/5E27500014FD433E96B4B1E79656748E.jpg[/IMG]

 

finally my last 2 pics

[IMG]local://upfiles/5570/660BDFB0DD0841738A2030F793A5EC9A.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/5570/A470B1C719F749A6A6778FA1096099AF.jpg[/IMG]