Thread: are my rings bad or is it the headgasket?

ok so my brake caliper seized up on me and i had to replace it but it took me 2 days to get to since the rain. i fix it, bleed it all, go to move the car and bam sounds like the starter was shot... i was pissed kicked a dent in the fender that already had a dent and needed to be replaced, and just gave up. went out to cool down and came home and my dad had told me that him and my uncle were looking it over and the car cranked so it wasnt the started but it would not start no matter what. so i sat there played around with a few wires, took out plug wires and checked the plugs. cyl 1 was soaked in oil on both the top and bottom of the plug inside and outside of the combustion chamber, and the bottom of the plug wire was soaked in oil. i finally got the car to start but it was blowing blue smoke out of the exhaust for a while but then the smoke just turned to white typical condensation but the exhaust stayed like that for a while when it would normally just diminish to clear and pretty much clear. i checked the oil and there was no goo that you would normally have when the head gasket blows so im starting to think i might have fried the oil ring. any advice before i pull the engine out to rebuild yet another damn engine?

well if there is oil on the plug wire that means that the spark plug tube seal is leaking , also depending on the amount of oil that was in the tube when you took the plug out it could have gotten on the plug and in the combustion chamber causing the smoke from the exhaust . But if i had to diagnose the problem i would say that change the valve cover gasket set causing oil on the plug wires and also the rings are shot causing the plug to be soaked in oil

Oil on the top of the plug is just the o ring in the valve cover leaking. Replace the valve cover set and do not listen to Nissan or the so called experts, please put a coating of RVT on each ring, top of it and bottom to prevent any leaking. A thin layer of RVT and the gasket torqued down is the best preventative measure against any leaking, trust me I know.

i would go ahead and do a compression test to be 100

yea i had a feeling it was the valve cover gasket for the oil on the top but the oil on the bottom was quite a bit.


the only gasket i didnt put rvt on for the valve cover was the spark plug center one since i figured it would be dead center with all the other gaskets


yea i just need to get access to a compression tester.



my main concern though is the white smoke in the exhaust for the long amount of time.

When you unscrew the plugs, the oil that was settled in the plug well drips down to the bottom of the plug. I'm sure that's the cause of the oil underneath, if there was that much blowby it would be smoking constantly.

has the car not been driven for a long period of time

yea i just realized i was pulling the plug through a puddle of oil lol plus the gas mixed with the oil while it was trying to start for like 15 minutes probably flooded the chamber to the point that it couldnt start.

if it was the ring then it would be an issue of constant blue smoke. i think the white exhaust condensation smoke might just be because of water collecting in my muffler since it tends to like to do that...

i drove it on thursday which is when i realized the caliper was smoking then i moved it to a non sloped part of my driveway to do the caliper on saturday but then it started raining so i started doing the caliper today.

doessound like stark plug tube seals but def do a hot and cold compression test to make sure both your rings and hg are good but its a must to do both cold start compression and warm compression test