Once again my car crapped out on me. I was driving, started losing power(rpm) so i pulled over car wouldnt drive over 15mph? little back firing. HAd it towed to my house… took off the distributor and there was oil all over the bottom of it and inside of it aswell. the rotor would barely spin due to all the grease/oil buildup. on the side of the dist that mounts to the cam/head there was oil residue all down the side of it as if it were dripping out . Could this be a cam seal gone bad? please help me. thanks
technically it’s not a cam seal but a distributor o-ring. if you unplug the harnesses on the side of the distributor and take out the 3 bolts holding the distributor housing to the head, you can remove the entire disributor assembly. should only take like 10 mins at most. anyway take off the distributor and there are 2 o-rings, if i remember right, that are on the shaft of the distributor that goes into the head and into the intake camshaft. check the condition of both o-rings. there’s a good chance they’re severly deteriorated or gone. either way they need to be replaced which isn’t any big deal. just get new ones from Acura.
HTH
the dist is off but i only see one o-ring, pretty bad looking too… i dont see another place for a second oring though?
there might just be one, i honestly can’t remember all that well. but if there is only one spot for one then there should only be one. cut that one off carefully, you don’t want to mess up the finish on the machined surface of the distributor shaft. then go to acura and get a new one, if they don’t have it in stock i’m sure they’ll be able to get you a new one in a few days. shouldn’t be more than a few bucks. also while you have the distributor out, go ahead and take off the cap, rotor, ignitor, and coil. inspect everything seems to be in good shape and doesn’t smell fried. clean all of the oil off of everything diligently. it might be a good idea to replace the cap and rotor, it only costs about $25 at a local auto parts store. there is a chance that this damaged your coil or ignitor, but that most likely didn’t happen. once you get the new o ring, put everything back together and see how the car runs. if it doesn’t seem up to par let us know and we can go from there.
Im pretty sure my distributor is trashed. The rotor will barely even spin from so much grease/oil biuld up even after trying to clean it. Im just going to go ahead and get a new one. Ill let you know how it turns out.