Further to my thread here, I've noticed that my oil has been contaminated with what I assume to be coolant.

The coolant had some scum floating in it, now it's got an oily film on the top.

It's not at the stage where the coolant and the oil have both turned to mayo, but something is defo amiss here.

I've taken the head off tonight assuming that I had a head gasket issue, but I can't see anything wrong tbh... There's no obvious tracking between the water jacket, oilways or cylinders on the block, head or gasket. Pistons 1&2 were slightly cleaner than 3&4, but none of them were clean enough to indicate a problem.

I've checked the bores, bit of scoring but nothing too bad, no obvious cracks... Checked the top face of the block, but no cracks that I can see... Is a crack normally obvious or can they be hard to spot sometimes?

Ditto for the head, I can't see any nasties there.

The only other thing that I can think of would be a problem with the modine - I've taken this off but there's nothing obviously wrong.

It's obvious that there is some contamination going on, but I can't get my head around why the oil appears worse than the coolant - surely the oil is under higher pressure than the coolant - I'd expect the coolant to come off worse, but my oil looks worse than the coolant

I'm going to try and get the modine tested tomorrow, any advice in the meantime would be much appreciated as I'm stumped here... I honestly expected a clean pot and obvious tracking somewhere!!

Cheers!

Neil.

 

Neil
Sorry to hear something isn't quite right

 

Neil, I have seen the small amount of scum on the top of the coolent loads of times, infact my escort has had some on top for 6 years!
get the head and modine pressure tested, but if you had of had an issue I would have assumed the symptoms would have been worse than they are!

did you spill any coolent into the oil way as you lifted the head?

steve

 

Mine was always clean as tho Stevie.

I'm going to do as you suggest, modine first, head after I've had chance to strip it.

Oil and coolant went all over the shop, but the oil was fucked before I started, see below!



Neil.

 

Bump

 

have you checked to see if the face of the head is flat?

 

looking at that picture neil, I can't see anything obviously wrong.

steve

 

The colour of the oil looks very odd to me Stevie - definitely full of water, that.

 

join the 2 water pipes on the modine and run the car for a couple of days, this should tell you if there is water or oil leaking into each system

 

have you checked the turbo ,it is very rare but I have seen it where the core has become porous

 

Not yet Tony, it's still on the manifold and head. Will check it out tomorrow night, am going to strip the head to have it inspected

 

Oh, forgot to say, the modine is fine - had it pressure tested today