Wanting to do something useful in these strange days (between Christmas and New Year when everyone forgets what day it is), I decided it would be a good idea to investigate the vtec solenoid leak that my car has had ever since I bought it. I didn't do the sensible thing and order a new gasket beforehand but I did follow a pretty useful guide that I found on the internet.
So I removed the part and I'm pretty convinced it's been off before and bodged back on with some sort of gasket sealant because it was pieces of this disintegrated sealant (it was disgusting slimy stuff) which appeared to have bridged the gasket and were causing the pretty slow but extensive oil leak across one side of the engine bay. I am of course assuming it wasn't installed by Honda using sealant - I could be wrong with that). Here's how it looked (looking closely you can see the bits of sealant along the bottom edge which is where it leaked from):
I decided to go against my engineering knowledge and fit a new gasket - thinking that if I removed the old gasket, cleaned it up and refitted it - it probably couldn't leak any more than it already was doing and if it was damaged (or I damaged it) or it had absorbed oil and swollen up then I could always leave it in bits and order one from the dealer next week. I was pleased to see that it wasn't visibly torn or damaged upon removal.
Here it is after a good clean:
The mounting face was carefully cleaned with a razor blade to remove bits of sealant from it allowing it the best chance of sealing:
I put it all back together after a fairly feeble attempt at cleaning up some of the old leak (access isn't great!) and went out for a blast in it (mostly above 5500rpm
)and all seems ok. No leak at the moment but I suppose time will tell - it didn't cost anything so if it doesn't work it won't really matter. I followed this little job with an attempt to refurb my electric aerial although that wasn't quite as successful!
Hope you all had a good Christmas and all the best for 2014...
) by Leicester by any chance as I was there going to Leicester at the weekend and spotted a 4g on a drive in this village