Coolant leaking into oil/oil leaking into coolant?!

[jtanguay]

I had a 1.9 head gasket installed on my 1.6 TD, and before there was never a problem with this.  I now have some nice black oil in my coolant and figured out that the coolant is leaking into my oil, making the level rise (water in oil... not good...)

Its not a mechanical head, so there really shouldn't be any problems like this should there?  Does anyone think that all it needs is a good torquing?  Possible crack?  There is definitely some sort of pressure being exhausted into the head cover, since the oil cap worked its way off one day  :cry:

any info appreciated.

[wyldman]

I doubt it is the head gasket,as i have had zero problems with the 1.9L metal headgaskets leaking.

Could it be the oil cooler leaking internally ?

[jtanguay]

I guess its a possibility.  There is quite a bit of sludge mixed in with the coolant, and its nice and black at the top of the expansion tank.  I thought it was leaky injectors filling up my oil.

The thing that makes me wonder, is that I've never had this problem before.  I will remove the cooler and see if i can pressure test it somehow (maybe with a water hose or something)

Is it common for the cooler to leak?  maybe only under high pressure? (since I'm trying to break in the rings... :twisted:)   I think it only leaks when the engine is cold.

[Powjetta]

I just put a 1.9 head gasket on and eliminated the oil in coolant.  The old gasket was the standard 1.6 and didn't have any obvious problems.  I didn't have a cooler then and so it had to be the gasket.  Very unusual because I never had water in the oil.  It seemed to get worse with higher temps.

[jtanguay]

I got the oil cooler off, and it looks pretty bad.. I can't seem to pressurize it to the point where its bleeding out (around 10 psi, all I can get without blowing my makeshift hose)

What I'm wondering now, is if coolant circulates to the cooler when the engine is cold...  My oil cooler had quite a bit of oily residue on it so I'm going to take that as a sign that its the oil cooler.

oh yea I hate the stupid clips holding my hoses on... I was ready to snip them... but I got them off.  I'm definitely switching to the screw tight clips! Of course, it is my A/C hoses in the way though!  :lol:

[jtanguay]

well I got it all back together...  I was wondering why my fan wasn't kicking on (temp gauge at halfway between 3rd and 2nd last line).  I cleaned up the pressure sender on the a/c line and it worked? (yea I spilled some water flushing my system.. lol).  Very weird.

Even with the new cooler I still think I'm mixing coolant + oil.  I hope I'm wrong (the oil level went up a fair bit, but I did put a new oil filter + add oil.. so hopefully its just soaking up extra oil.. (PLUS the fact that the oil was heated up substancially...)

Hope this is the end of my coolant/oil mixing days.  I'm just waiting for the motor to cool, then drain the chemical flush crap.

[jtanguay]

For a definitive answer, has anyone heard of using some sort of dye in the coolant that would change the colour of the oil if it were to mix?

That would really put my mind at ease...  Can I just use food colouring or something???

[Powjetta]

Have you got this answered yet?  My experiance was that coolant mixed in the oil would cause a light brown foamy oil.  After it cools and sets and seperates crack open the drain plug and see what comes out.  The water will come out first as it is denser than oil.  I have heard that some coolants like Dexcool will foam into a gell and not seperate out.

[jtanguay]

I'm quite confident that the problem is now solved  

but.. It seems as though I have an air lock in my rad  One side gets hot, and the other side is cold  :cry: ...  Guess I didn't do it right.   Time to park on a hill  My level is staying constant now, and my coolant doesn't have the oily film on the top.

The oil cooler's inside looks pretty bad... I'm guessing the coolant has never been flushed and so the corrosive coolant just ate it up...  :evil:

What might have happened is the water evaporated from the coolant, but left the ethylene glycol in the oil (higher boil temp) because when I drained the oil I did not see any brown foamy oil.

[jtanguay]

actually in regard to my previous post about not seeing brown... when I flushed my system the 1st time (after getting the water to run clear out of the system) it was pretty disgusting blackish brown nasty...  so yea flushing it was a pretty good idea (too bad I didn't let the guys at the oil change place do it... they are always eager to get my money... but little do they know the pain and agony of removing the PS pump, and getting it back in..!!  :lol: )

Back to business.  I ran the car with a digital thermometer in the coolant reservoir and voila!  With a new 87C thermostat the coolant reservoir temp read 85.5C and right when it was refreshing, the temp started to drop... drastically (running it with the cap off and getting the thermostat open seems to be the trick!)  I'm guessing the coolant that was touching the thermostat had to have been 87C or pretty close to it being closer to the engine and all.  I'm impressed with the accuracy!   My temp gauge before would hover at around the middle, and now it reads between the 3rd and 2nd bar from the right.  Makes me feel better knowing what temp is what on my gauge now.

Still, my car took almost 3km to reach 80C.  Not complaining here, but in the winter time I might  but hey at least the thermostat I have now is going to help a little

and lastly, my oil level seems to be a bit more constant, and not going up, and any residue in my coolant is now gone.  I'm happy  :lol:

oh and the moral of the story... flush your coolant (wish I could tell it to all the PO's out there... idiots)  but we all know to do that... or do we?  :lol: