Hey all,

Just bought a new (to me) 1995 Monte z34 w/ 137k miles----damn!!

well anyways- I did a full tune up on it and even used some seafoam, but just a few hours ago, I changed the plugs---the back ones aren't so hard once you try it-- so when I pull out the front 3, there is oil coating every thing- Even my socket came out coated in oil and leaked enough oil to drip for a while

where should I start looking?

I hope it doesn't mean sudden death---

I think it's either the valve cover gasket, or spark plug seals- but it's a new car to me so I have no idea what symptoms appear for certain problems-

Ozzie

 

Most likely its the valve covers for the way you are saying
Welcome to our little part of the WWW

 

Hi from one newbie to another.
If it's the 3.4 engine you've got, I hope it's not the same design as the 3.4 I had in my '99 Grand Am GT.
I (and many others according to grand am forums)hada lot of problems with leaky gaskets. The main complaint being the lower intake manifold gasket. We would find oil in the rad, and coolant in the engine when the gasket went. I'm almost positive you have the earlier design, which would be a good thing in your case. The Z34's were a nice, fast car. Hope all turns out well for ya!

 

could be the intake manifold set, they're a problem on the 3.1's and the 3.4's.....BIG problem on them

felpro makes a problem solver kit for the cars, if its the 3.4 its the MS98003T kit, comes with valve cover gaskets and the intake gaskets with the metal inserts in them, this should fix the problem, but its about a 5 hour job

 

I will try and find the valve cover gaskets and spark plug seals today

hopefully that will do the trick

I replaced the plugs with champion platinums but my buddy (the guy I bought the car from) told me the car runs like crap on anything other than copper---believe me, I would have bought copper if they had them in stock at the time---anyone else notice crappy performance from non-copper plugs

 

did the front side, and the backside will be taken care of this weekend----

just changing the plugs made a hell of a difference, I thought the z34 were supposed tohave a little bit of pickup and go, but before I changed the plugs, I thought I was just to used to my d.driver and this was just slow-

after the plugs it feels really good, and actually moves when I hit the accelerator, before it would bog and feel like it wasn't moving---the plugs had been in there for a few years

thanks for the help guys---any other little things I can do to this car to improve performance---I gave it to my mom, but I still want it to be as reliable as possible for her---tranny fluid worth changing? My car also is at about 3500-4000 rpm while cruising expressway speeds- I thought auto transmissions were supposed to upshift to a lower rpm?