So I drive a vintage 1995 Honda Accord and recently it has been having some problems. I have yet to do any posts about the automotive field, so I decided I would document some of things that I am learning.
I do not profess to be an automotive expert or even a car hobbyist. I am a straight up car noob! At college, I am away from home and don't have the benefit of asking the car guys that I know for any help. But what I have come to learn is that everything you need to know is on Youtube!
A few weeks ago my car started shaking really badly. The engine sounded like it was running differently and I noticed that the shaking was exceptionally bad when I slowed down and was idling. My first thought was that there was something wrong with the spark plug. So I opened up the hood with my brother-in-law and inspected the Spark plugs.
This is what the inside of my car looks like....
Intimidating right?
What we found is that the first spark plug was not firing and that the cylinder it sits in had oil in it.
This is what a piston/spark plug/cylinder assembly that is firing is supposed to look like. (As found on Youtube)
If you notice in the video, there is a cylinder that has a piston that goes up and down. The animation even has spark plugs that ignite the blue fuel in the cylinder. The problem with my car, is that there was oil on my spark plug. There was so much oil that the spark plug was doused, sitting in a pool of oil, and was unable to make a spark. No spark = No firing piston = One man down. This animation video is of a 8 cylinder engine. My car only has 4 spark plugs. Because one of the pistons wasn't firing, the other 3 have to work extra hard and the crank shaft ( in the video it is the center rod in the middle of the assembly that is being turned or "cranked") may not be in sync. This is what was causing my car to shake.
The SOLUTION:
Replace the spark plugs, and stop the oil from leaking into the cylinder again. How do you do that....?
So again, I went to Youtube to learn how to replace spark plugs. This is the exact video that I watched. Just ignore the 20 second weird introduction.
I found the video extremely helpful and went to the local auto parts store and bought 4 brand new spark plugs. Total cost on spark plugs,$2 a piece = $8.
As you can see, the plug on the right is the new spark plug and is what it is supposed to look like. The spark plug on the left is bad. You can tell that it has been burned and scorched from sitting in and trying to ignite a pile of oil.
So for $8, we replaced the spark plugs, but we hadn't fixed the entire problem. Sure, we got all of the oil out of the spark plugs, but if we don't fix the source, more oil will just leak back in onto the spark plugs. So doing some more research on Youtube, I found a video to show me how to replace the valve cover gasket. I went to the local auto parts store and purchased a valve cover gasket set for about $20. My brother-in-law and I watched the video below a few times, and then went at it.
After only spending $30, and a little bit of time watching videos, my car runs like a champ! Everything you need to know is on Youtube.
