I have a 92 civic dx that has several problems that have stumped me. I'm considering having my engine rebuilt but I'd rather not if I don't have to. My car has been leaking oil since I've had it for the past 6 months and I've noticed a decrease in my mpg. I thought that was a sign of bad spark plugs so I decided to change them and when I took them out they were covered in oil. I'm not sure what to do to fix that but I have considered replacing either the pistons or the valve gasket. On top of that my power steering has been leaking my my radiator fan doesn't work and causes my car to overheat. Where would be a good place for me to start fixing it?

 

Oil on the tops of spark plug would point to bad spark plug gaskets in the valve cover. Most valve gasket kits come with these already. Kind of a pain in the *** to replace, but once you figure it out, you should be good to go. Oil on the diode that make the actual spark would mean something else, possibly bad valve seals?

As far as as the other oil "leaks", where are you seeing the oil coming from? You may need to clean everything off and then watch for the oil to come back. The o-ring behind the distributor (on the passenger side of the engine) is a common place to see oil leaks.

For the power steering, you can find the leak and fix it, or possibly remove power steering from you car unless the leak is coming from the steering rack itself. Please research on how to depower the rack properly and loop the lines. There is a decent write up on this forum I believe.

Fan not coming on could be a few things. Locate the fan switch on the thermostat housing, unplug the harness from the sensor and stick a paper clip into the harness part. You are essentially "jumping" the switch. Once jumped, turn the car on and see if the fan turns on. If yes, the switch is bad. If not, the problem is elsewhere. Either in the wiring, or possibly a bad fan relay.

 

Love it, try to help out a new member and spend 15 minutes on a reply and the guy never signs back on. The fact his join time and post time are exactly the same suggests he went to every damn Civic/Honda forum and copy/pasted the same problem. New members take note.

 

PROBABLY didn't know enough to make sure he had checked the option to get email notifications immediately. I made sure to do that, but some forums have another option to send notifications only weekly. Still, this thread was months ago, and the newbie appears to have lost interest without so much as a wave g'bye.