I have a 2000 Avenger 2.5L. I just was out putting a new front valve cover gasket on it and I noticed one of the rocker shaft springs was missing off the shaft and laying in there. I pulled the parts of the old spring out but I am curious if it needs to be replaced. The car seems to run fine.

I also noticed the oil looks quite milky but I'm hoping its not a head gasket and is because the car hasn't really been driven in the past 9 months.

 

Well it depends on which one was missing the spring , intake or exhaust valve

You are likely running on 5 cylinders either way

If the intake was stuck shut there was no way to get gas/air in so the spark would fire on nothing...

If the exhaust valve was the damaged on the cylinder it would fire and there was no where to exhaust and it would create high pressure and try to escape either thru the gasket(weakest point) or crack the head or back thru the intake when it opens ...

was the oil just milky in the heads ? or in the crankcase as well ?
since it sat the oil in the heads might have drawn water/moisture while it sat

in the crank it might be indicating the valve caused issues

 

I'm not sure if I made that clear enough. I am attaching an image to this post. The piece that was missing was #7 in the image. I have seen them referred to as rocker shaft spring clips as well. I am not missing the actual valve spring, just one of the little metal clips that sits on the shaft. I don't think I'm missing any cylinders, at least as far as I can tell. The car runs great and pedal responds well considering it has been 99% idle for the past 9 months. The car does get started daily and moved to the opposite side of the street each weekday so it hasn't been completely idle all this time.

As far as oil goes, I pulled the dipstick yesterday and it too looked milky. The car doesn't seem to be low on coolant or anything so I'm not sure. The car was in for a new timing belt back in January and they changed the oil, never said anything about it looking milky. Had this idiot kid test drive the car back in March and he kind of hammered on it for a few seconds after leaving my driveway. Other than that, is it possible to have a damaged gasket even though the car hasn't been driven? I don't have a compression tester handy so should I try pulling plugs and see if any are wet?

*edit* it would seem the image got uploaded in a very small format. hopefully the second upload is readable.

 

I can't really see the diagram to well it appears that they are the retainers for the arms

not the springs I thought you were talking about that control the valves