Hey everyone... I have an issue that now befuddleing me. My car is an '88 560SEL and has less than 70K miles. On my way home with with it it started burning oil (Car was in NY, home is Denver, oil burning started in St. Louis) Anyway, figuring it was either valve stem seals or valve guides, I decided the best thing to do was replace the valve stem seals, and while they're off to check the valve guides. Well, I finally had some time to tear into the motor this weekend and this is what I found:

I don't have my chamber number chart in front of me so please bare with me.

The spark plug from 2nd chamber from the front on the passengers side was coated in oil and appeared scorched.

When the engine was secured and air was applied through a spark plug adapter (100psi) I could hear air coming from the area of the spark plug hole. Sometimes I wouldn't get any hissing, but if I jiggled the air hose I would. I could not repeat the air leak on other chambers.

Here are a couple of pics I hope show what I'm talking about:

The spark plugs



Chamber with good seal on the air hose fitting:


Chamber with bad/hissing sound from the air hose fitting:



As you can tell, from the "bad" chamber it appears I'm getting seapage. I'm not seeing this on any other part of the motor...


Any Ideas?



Scott