Bought a 94 Civic Ex last year for my daughter. It had a whole new distributor, plugs and wires. Yesterday it wouldn't start. Turns over fine but didn't fire. She tried it again later and it started. I checked everything last night and removed the distributor cap only to find quite a bit of oil inside the cap. Needless to say, the rotor contact and 4 contacts in the cap don't look to good. I cleaned it all up and scraped the contacts clean and the car started about 5 times and then didn't start one time. I tried again and it started but I don't trust it will always. Somehow oil got inside the distributor cap. There is also oil on the bottom outside. The inside oil was very clean so I'm guessing must have leaked in from the shaft? I know there is an O-ring seal around the shaft of a new distributor. Would that O-ring also prevent oil from getting inside? I see they sell a new bushing for distributors but I don't know where it's located. I searched and see lots of distributor problems but not oil. Anyone had this problem and what's the fix?

 

See if you can get your warranty on that distributor. The seal is bad. There are 2 seals, the outside one keeps oil from running out to the outside of the engine, and an inner one (that you can't see) keeps oil out of the distributor. The inner seal is not generally sold separate, officially you're supposed to replace the whole distributor.

 

The new distributor was installed before I bought it so no warranty. Sounds like the only way to seal the inside is to replace the distributor. Too bad I can't seal it up some how since the distributor is almost new. Isn't it strange both inner and outer seals would be bad? Maybe it's the wrong distributor or just a very cheap one.