Hi All,

I have a slight concern over my cylinder head on my Escort.

I was doing some general maintenance on the car, and was changing the spark plugs.

After i removed them all, No. 1 plug was black with soot compared to the rest.

Strange I thought, so I had a look inside the plug hole - after removing the rocker cover.

When I shined a torch into the plug hole, I could see my reflection. Some how oil is getting into the chamber and collecting on top of the piston, roughly 3mm of oil in total

So what could it be as the oil only comes when the car is stood, doesn't blue smoke and runs fine when warm - but does use some oil on a hard run.

I also checked the other chambers to find that they where slightly damp with oil.

So what could it be?? Valve guides? Seals or worse the piston rings (but that would create blue smoke so I'm ruling it out)

Any info - exploded diagrams etc would be greatly received as I would like to solve this problem before it gets beyond hope.

Many Thanks