Btw the muffler is rusted out and exhaust pipe is fallen bit to have leak near front end near the cooling coils. So it's a bit loud normally.

Drove home fine. Next day tries to start and it sputtered sound for 3 seconds so i shut it off. It didn't kill itself though. Oil was on low end of dipstick so I topped off.

Next day I tried again and it produced the result in the video. Sputtered for second then died.

Any idea what could be most likely cause? Where to start investigating ?

EDIT:

ANOTHER ISSUE. Went to change the spark plugs and there is oil in left two plugs. What the heck is this?

 

Friends say might be blown cover gasket. So will try to replace that for now and see how that goes.

 

Valve cover gasket needs to be replaced if, with the spark plugs still installed, there is oil around the base of it. When you take it apart, you will see that there is a circular piece of gasket around each spark plug well.. use a felpro gasket and be sure to clean the mating surfaces on both the cover and the head or you will not get a good seal. Do not Nick the surfaces. Final wipe down should be with isopropyl alcohol.

There should be a groove in the cam cover for the gasket. Be careful not to stretch the gasket while inserting it in the groove. It's very easy to do by accident. You'll know if you did when you get all the way around to the other side. You should not have any extra. If you do, start over with a new one because it will never seal.

 

If you were down to the bottom of the stick, that's over 1 quart out of four missing. Do not let that happen again if you like your vehicle running.

Stalls too quickly to determine just from that clip why it is stalling. Given the cam cover gasket failure, plugs may be getting rapidly oil fouled. I would replace the plugs with the stock NGK plugs while you are doing the cam cover gasket.

On the gasket: do not over torque. Over torquing this gasket will cause it to leak. Torque it to spec with a torque wrench.

 

Thank you for your replies I will follow advice. Cover is now off. One issue:

When first saw all the oil, stupidly removed the leftmost spark plug because was flabbergasted about all the oil. Had a pool of oil in there and it went into the cylinder. What should I do in this situation? Potentially fair amount of oil in a cylinder

 

Almost forgot. Before you put the cover with the gasket to the head, I need to add a DOT of RTV at the t-joints where the timing section of the engine meets they head.

See https://charm.li/Saturn/1995/Wagon%2...0and%20Repair/

There is a chance if you don't do the above that you may have leaks at those points. There should have been RTV residue from the last person that did this job. So you need to add literally just a DOT on top of that unless you scrape it all off in which case you need to add a little more.

​​​​​​​How much oil are we talking about? How submerged was the plug? I would think it's okay to just go with it. It will get ejected through the exhaust valves or swept back down into the crankcase if it does not burn when you first start the vehicle.

You will also want to clean off spark plug boots inside and out if oil has gotten up into them. If they are too swollen to seal against the plug, replace them.

 

Alright thanks for advice

One issue just wondering about, the gasket from FEL-PRO seems like has interconnections at awkward spots for the spark plug tube seals. I don't see how they would fit? Should I get APEX or MAHLE/CLEVITE instead? There are only grooves on the outer edge of the engine, and on the 4 larger O's above the spark plug. No grooves between the plugs.

Apex has commectoons on center similar to what my car looks like, but there are no grooves between the O's in the metal.

MAHLE has just rubber O with no connections.

Very confused which would fit best

Can maybe see in these pictures

 

at least one coil pack has lot corrosion so think will replace both? Anything to worry about when replacing these or tips ?

 

Another off topic... the rubber hose that is coming out of right side of cam cover, where it is connected near where the oil cap is, is so brittle that has some crack holes so I aim to replace it. Never bought hoses before, any tips on this? I'm not sure what hose it is called, but are they cut to shape or what

 

When you install the four O s into the groove in the cover, you must be sure the holes in the gasket in between the cylinders line up with the holes that receive the cam cover bolts.

I think you're looking at the wrong / incompatible cam cover gasket. The one that matches your engine is shown below

The other pieces that come with the kit are insulators, one for each bolt that holds down the cam cover.

Also, the mating service must be completely free of residual gasket material. The spark plug holes have significant residue where the gasket is trying to seal. I think there is a bunch of stuff still on the back mating edge.

I'm not picking at you, I want this to succeed the first time.