Oil in radiator - PICS ADDED

3rd September 2011, 08:09

morning all, since doing a 16v conversion i seem to have a lot of oil in the coolant system, but not the other way around :s it looks like brown gunky stuff. as soon as i stop the it leaks from the radiator cap to the road. i know the head gasket is fine as its a new mls one, any other ideas? could the standard oil cooler be leaking? Cheers.

3rd September 2011, 09:49

also if i flush it out with fresh water, give it about 5 mins of running and water will come out of the hole near the cap, a few more mins and the brown gunky stuff starts to come out, any ideas?

3rd September 2011, 18:57

looking at it, it looks as if the oil is too old and dirty to be from the new engine, ideas?

3rd September 2011, 21:00

oil level actually may of gone down, cock it.

3rd September 2011, 21:20

youve either got a h/g issue, or the cooling system is air locked, the brown gunk wil most probs be rusty water deposits from the cooling system and heater amtrix

3rd September 2011, 21:22

I wouldn't rule out the HG just because it's new, that has all the symptoms of a classic HG failure

3rd September 2011, 21:47

well funny story, my radiator cap spring broke as i was going out and left the saxo at my girlfriends grandads as i got a lift to halfords, he assured me while i was gone that he had flushed it throughly, little did i know, this involved a watering can and a teaspoon of fairy liquid, ill upload pics in a bit, bearing in mind the engine was throughly cleaned before being assembles and only ran on new 0w-30 mobil 1 for 60 miles i do not see how it could be producing this brown goop. which as i seem to remember dripped out of rad when i removed it to swap engine.

3rd September 2011, 22:10

also i havent swapped to a vts rad when i fitted the vts engine, just kept the vtr one.

3rd September 2011, 22:17

you got mayo in your oil cap?

just looks like shit in the rad to me.
take your rad out
and put a waterhose in it so you will see all the shit come out of the ran, this will clean it.
then stick back on.

ps are you using coolant at all?

3rd September 2011, 22:23

nope, had a good look in engine, clean as a whistle, no oil/water mixture around cap or on dipstick. iirc the old engine did not have a coolant change for 2 years, not convinced it had coolant in it for tht time either lol. new engine has 50/50 mixture from halfords. no loss of power from engine, would pull past my old cammed vtr without hesitation, no smoke from exhaust and even with vtr rad sits under half.

3rd September 2011, 22:29

anyone got a pic of what a headgasket failure looks like lol

3rd September 2011, 23:11

just take both pipes of rad and flush it bac and forth l from each endwit a hose, i looks manky that rad,

probs just shite from the rad or matrix, are you getting HOT air to the heaters?

3rd September 2011, 23:15

air is bloody hot lol, ive been driving with them on hot full blast with windows down to flush out any crap that could be in there, everytime i stop i fill the expansion chamber with water to flush out the crap on the top. surely brand new 0w-30 wouldent look like that tho

3rd September 2011, 23:16

What does the coolant smell like?Meaning can you smell petrol fumes?

Edit then forget the above post.

3rd September 2011, 23:17

and can i add, when fitted new engine, was always at 3/4 temp on guage, saw all this shite, flushed out by adding water to expansion chamber and temp dropped to just over half, flushed out again today, same way, and now sits just under half lol.

3rd September 2011, 23:18

not petrol, just like drains

4th September 2011, 01:05

Whats the oil on the dipstick like, creamy? I think it sounds like a leak across an oilway into the water jacket if the oil wasnt there before you did the conversion. A whole cooling system flush would be good - washing powder, hosepipe and lots of water. Then fill it back up with fresh coolant and check for oil again after running. Do you know for a fact this engine didnt suffer a head gasket failure, its been repaired and the oil not flushed out with clean stuff?

4th September 2011, 01:22

new hg counts for fuckall if the head face wasnt true, uncracked, or the whole shebang wasnt fitted correctly.

4th September 2011, 09:59

head was true and crack free as it was skimmed and crack tested. there was some oil in there before i fitted engine but.not much i dont think, never really checked on old engine and noting atall wrong with engine itself noting but clean oil anywhere, dipstick clean, filler cap clean even undone the drain plug a little and clean there. engine is nit using oil nor giving off white smoke, will give it a damn good flush tomorrow and report back lol

4th September 2011, 14:01

Washing powder works wonders on oil in cooling systems. I used to work on K-series engines a lot and it always worked a treat on the heavy head gasket leaks you used to get on those.

4th September 2011, 16:19

yeahh just used some from the works kitchen lol, alot of dark brown/black shit came out and the engine runs alot cooler now. going to do it again middle of next week for peace of mind, engine oil level still staying the same.

4th September 2011, 23:59

My coolant looks about the same mate, i've flushed it out a couple of times and its not really any different. It doesn't get hot just stays half way, no mayo on the cap etc, it runs fine so stopped worrying now.

5th September 2011, 00:07

yeahh, alot came out at first but now mostly just the odd tiny splodge now and then, iirc soneone said it was due to the metals in the head/block? anyway, runs cooler now its been flushed a few times so wasnt a complete waste of time lol.

8th September 2011, 19:38

had this problem on a 320 bmw, flushed the water system out and all was fine. i would do that before going straight to head gasket,