Oil around spark-plug wire, Cause to be concerned? Options

[solidxsnake]

At some point in the near future I intend on replacing my plugs, wires, rotor, cap and doing an oil change. Since I'm completely unfamiliar with doing simple maintenance such as that, I decided to run through a couple steps out of curiosity.

I came across a lot of oil being around the rubber seal on the first cylinder's plug wire, the one on the top of the head. None of the other seals had oil on them, so I'm led to believe that there's a leak somewhere that I should get checked out. As for burning oil, the engine doesn't burn oil normally (nearing 174k miles), but at startup until it warms up it puffs thin white smoke with a tinge of blue for a couple of minutes. I know that's relatively normal, but I'm not sure about the oil around the spark plug wire. Should I be concerned? And what are possible causes/fixes for the leak (for instance, where would the leak be? Obviously somewhere in the head around that plug hole).

Thank you

[enderswift]

the majority of us have the same issue as you. that puff of smoke you get is the result of worn valve guides, which for a car with 170k, is to be expected. The oil on your plug wire is coming from the seals that separate the the valve cover from the head through which the spark plugs run. Those happen to fail often as well. My car has 75 k and i get oil on my plug wires every once in a while too. none of this is toyotas fault, just remember that the newest 6th gen on the road is 10 years old, more than enough tme for seals to start deteriorating

This post has been edited by enderswift: Sep 14, 2009 - 2:26 PM

[solidxsnake]

the majority of us have the same issue as you. that puff of smoke you get is the result of worn valve guides, which for a car with 170k, is to be expected. The oil on your plug wire is coming from the seals that separate the the valve cover from the head through which the spark plugs run. Those happen to fail often as well. My car has 75 k and i get oil on my plug wires every once in a while too. none of this is toyotas fault, just remember that the newest 6th gen on the road is 10 years old, more than enough tme for seals to start deteriorating

Okay, it seemed like quite a bit of oil on that plug wire (in addition to the fact that the other plug wires were 100% oil free).

Any reason to be worried? I figure not, but always would like to be sure.

Thanks for the input

Edit: By worried, I mean, should I bother getting the seals replaced? How much of a task is that? Also, I knew the smoke was from the valve guides. Also worth repairing, and again how difficult?

This post has been edited by solidxsnake: Sep 14, 2009 - 9:50 PM