Oil leak in spark plug wells (best way to clean out?)

[Eprisoncells]

After lurking the board through an abundant amount of resources and helpful tips, I guess the first post should be a 'dumb question' one. As it would seem this problem is fairly common among subaru's; we own a 2001 2.5L outback, and while taking one of the spark plug boots out it was completely covered in oil along with the well leading down to the plug. Now, I have read here how it is more than likely a gasket of some sort, which is a given, but seeing as I know squat about these cars I simply just wanted to clean out the oil the safest way possible and replace the plugs (since they are so cheap) to hopefully improve the performance of the car until the girlfriend does get it fixed. I've done valve gaskets on my Intrepid before, but when I look at the subaru engine it just looks like another language to me. Any advice in advance would be greatly appreciated.

[NOMAD327]

The spark plugs go into tubes on all the Subaru engines, and the outer end of the tubes seal to the inside surface of the valve cover with rubber ring gaskets that are usually part of a valve cover gasket set. There should be two cover gaskets and four tube seals in a typical kit, and the work is not too difficult after you move a few things like the washer bottle and slightly move the battery on the drivers side, and the air induction piping and top of air cleaner on the passenger side. (There is a hose about 1" diameter that comes off the bottom of the main piping very easy, if it is not restored the motor will not idle, in fact will barely run!). It is damaging to the spark plugs to run with the oil surrounding them, but changing the plugs early may not be necessary unless the engine has driveability problems. The plugs are about $15 each list, so changing them is not exactly cheap. A little bit of oil will just drain into the cylinder when you pull the plug if you do, otherwise you can displace the oil with soapy water followed by drying with air or small rags. The oil will return quickly, so gasket replacement is the best bet. Where in Pennsylvania do you live?

 

[Eprisoncells]

Thank you very much Nomad, it is greatly appreciated. Turns out it doesn't too complex at all, at least by the way you described it. I imagine I'll be hacking away at it this Saturday and hopefully all goes well. We live just under an hour south of Erie. Thanks again for the tip.