Need Help! Oil in spark plug well

[RedMonte85]

My 03 envoy started a misfire the other day. I ran an obd scan on it and it said that cylinder 3 was misfiring. I bought a new ignition coil and was taking the other one out and i noticed there is oil in the spark plug well. Enough that it iw almost definitely the cause of the misfire. When I pulled the old ignition coil out, oil was dripping off the end of it. Is this caused by a bad head gasket? Any help would be much appreciated

 

[Sparky]

Not a head gasket, more likely the little donut gasket around the plug well for the valve cover is leaking. It is fairly common to happen on a lot of inline DOHC engines (I've seen GM and Honda do this for sure). Typically just snugging down the valve cover bolts is enough.

 

[RedMonte85]

I got the oil out and soaked up any residue. Cleaned the ignition coil off and put it all back together. Hopefully it lasts til warmer weather and I can tear it apart to change the valve cover gasket. Seems to be running fine now

 

[Mooseman]

What I did to help snug the gasket down a bit more is remove the bolts for the coils and add a washer on each bolt so the coil would exert a little extra pressure down on that gasket.

 

[Sparky]

It probably will be fine for a while.

My one well had a decent amount of oil in it when I changed plugs the first time. Next time I changed them there was only some oil in there but not near as much as the first time.

 

[RedMonte85]

Does anyone happen to know the valve cover torque specs? I remember reading somewhere that it is in-lbs.

 

[Mooseman]

89 lb in