MX-3.com

I have a beloved red 93 (manufactured 9/23/92) 4-cyl mx3 with 178K miles. I believe the engine is 1.6L B6 SOHC. It's currently burning about a qt of oil/tank of gas. It produces an impressive white cloud for the first mile or so every morning. The sparkplug threads are heavily coated with oil. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've determined that I need to replace the Valve Cover Gasket. I've looked in the online manuals, but have not found the instructions i need. Any suggestions?

Sounds about right.

Really easy to replace it. Detorque the fasteners holding the VC down in a spiral pattern, starting from the outside(torque the opposite direction of the spiral when installing it). Remove the VC and the gasket, clean off the surfaces(don't gouge them though, a plastic gasket scraper should do the trick). Torque down the bolts in three steps, the first at 44 inch pounds, the second at 59 inch pounds and the final at 74 inch pounds.

Thanks! It sounds like a piece of cake

If it's smoking during the first mile (from the tailpipe), it's probably going to be a headgasket. The smoke is from oil leaking into the cylinders and burning, creating white smoke. If the valve cover gasket is leaking, it would be leaking either around the top 1/4 of the engine or inside the spark plug holes. Even if it was leaking into the spark plug holes, it should not have any way to get past the spark plugs unless they're not tightened.


Here's the head gasket
http://www.mx-3.com/manuals/photo.php?f ... B1-002.gif
The valve cover gasket is under #1 on this page
http://www.mx-3.com/manuals/photo.php?f ... B1-020.gif
The headbolts tightening order for the 1.6 SOHC, 1.6 DOHC and 1.8 DOHC
http://www.mx-3.com/manuals/photo.php?f ... B1-019.gif
1.6 SOHC valve cover bolt tightening order
http://www.mx-3.com/manuals/photo.php?f ... B1-021.gif


These are the SOHC 1.6 images, but the concept is the same for the DOHC models.

***Edit
Just noticed you have the SOHC 1.6
Those pics are exactly what you need.

Ew, that's bad news. My experience with head gaskets is dismal. In 95' I blew the head gasket in my Honda Civic, on a family road trip no less. We were stranded in Reno, so I had to pay a guy $1500 to "fix" it, only to have it blow again a few months later. Apparently when the engine had overheated earlier, it warped either the aluminum block or head. I ended up scrapping the car after wasting a lot of $.
My MX3 recently sprung a slow radiator leak and overheated badly a few times before i identified and fixed the problem. Now that I think about it, the smoking started rather suddenly and about the same time. Bottom line is that i don't want to repeat my earlier mistake. (not that I'd be out near that much $, since I can fix it myself) Is there any way to tell if this is more than a gasket problem?