O.k. I am super tired.... spent 3 days with all my free time wrenchin on this 318 in the truck. It was sitting over the winter in my shop.... took er out for a whirl when i put the insurance on er and I check the oil... BAM milky! Fer fuck sakes!!! So no biggy... open fenders easy breezy. I decided to do the head gaskets and replace all the top end gaskets, and tonight I finish it. get er all back together, BAM water in my oil. WTF!!!!!!!!! Is my block cracked? Is there a way to find the source?? I am very frustrated. And hints/help ideas would be greatly appreciated, This motor was running so good and runs so good still.......I hate wasting my time. NAILHEAD
im taking a huge guess but if yer block isnt cracked, and you got a fluid cooled manifold, do you think its warped or maybe cracked?(the manifold) was there any fluid in any of the cylinders when you took the heads off?
Dont give up hope yet. I used to have a truck I didn't drive during the winter and inside the block it would condensate after starting it up for the first time. It took a couple oil changes to make it go away. There might be a product out there to help with that like they have for water in gas tanks. What I'd do is a leak down test as a cheap way to be certain. I don't know about Mission BC, but in Seattle it was a real mild winter and I can't imagine it was ever cold enough to freeze a block even if it had only 10% antifreeze in it.
When I took the heads off I guess I did'nt drain em completely and some water came out of the heads and onto the pistons. So I was unable to check for such a symptom. But I checked the plugs for obvious water damage. And they all looked in order, carboned up. The head gaskets were intact and the intake was not showing any signs of a blow out. I am no expert by any means, infact this is the first motor I have completely ripped apart and ran again. But I follwed my instructions from fellow wrench heads who have head gasket experience, and they are convinced that it is not a cracked block either. So wtf can it be then? I need to either rip this block out or find the problem..... getting very very tired. NAILHEAD This just pisses me off to no end. NAILHEAD
Go thru this thread. Lots of good troubleshooting suggestions. I like the ideas by Rocky and choprods near the end about pressurizing the cooling system. Just make sure you pull the plugs and crank it over by hand afterwards! http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47162 Good luck. Hopefully it'll just take a couple more oil changes.
tranny cooler in your rad??? I've seen internal transmission cooler leak inside the rad, causing oil to be in the coolant......if the trans fluid is dirty/looks like engine oil....just a thought.
Every time you shut off your engine and leave it overnight it will cool down and condensation will build inside the crankcase. If you only take short drives the engine never gets hot enough for a long enough period of time to drive out (or burn off) the water in the crankcase. This is exactly why it is recommended by auto makers to change your oil more often if your car is used mainly for short hops. The engine never fully warms up on Grandma's old slant-six Valiant if she only uses it once a week to go the the store that's only 2 miles away. The fact that your car sat for a long, cold BC winter pretty much tells the story. Even after an oil change you still have condensation clinging to the inside of the crankcase, only a good long drive on the interstate is going to get the engine hot enough for long enough to start burning off the water. My buddy who lives in the high-desert here in So Cal took the valvecovers off of his racecar and saw milky white shit inside them. It sits in his cold garage all the time, so that crap builds up easy on a thin sheetmetal valvecover pretty easy on a car that's pretty much never driven. He thought something was wrong, I told him it's just condensation. I was right. Drive the motherfucker. Put some miles on it, not just a few miles around the 'hood.
Hey guys, everybody's talking about condensation... he has OIL in his WATER, not water in his oil. My first suspect would be the tranny cooler like mentioned above... If that's NOT it, I'd start looking for more serious problems.
Read the very first post. Water in his oil. The title of this thread 'Oil in my water' is backwards........
"took er out for a whirl when i put the insurance on er and I check the oil... BAM milky! Fer fuck sakes!!!" "get er all back together, BAM water in my oil." I'd better go back to reading 101 then. Mutt
did it get cold enough for your coolant to freeze last winter over there in mission? if so and you didn't have no antifreeze in it you may have cracked the block, it it never froze over in your neck of the woods its likely not that serious, maybe just a gasket rusted thru someplace but I got 0 clue or knowledge of a 318 check to see if any of your frost plugs are unseated and you'll maybe be able to tell if it got cold enough to freeze, it don't hurt to run some anti freeze in your engine down there on the bamly coast on the off chance it'll freeze in the winter
Although this is a Volvo reference, the info. is good none the less... http://www.vclassics.com/archive/leakdown.htm
Replace the intake gaskets and seal with plenty of RTV...... Get a bottle of -BARS LEAKS-brand new radiator/block sealer...its a clear gel with aluminum powder suspended in the gel. I usually don't place much faith in such things. I drive an Old '88 Chevy V-8 1/2ton with a coolant loss of about a quart coolant to a hundred miles...it is a cracked head. I drained the block and flushed it clean- refilled about 2/3 with straight water and poured in a bottle of that. got it completely warmed up- shut it down and set overnight....now that was 6 weeks ago and no coolant loss.
Nailheads don't have water jackets in the intake manifold. I would check the timing cover, there are water jackets there. And they are made of aluminum and the bolt holes corode from the electrolysis. I have had them leak causing water in the oil many times.
His name is Nailhead -but I believe he is working on a 318 Mopar..... They are typically a no problem engine from what I understand......
Funny I should stumble across this thread. This past january here in Chicago we happened to have a 50 degree day so I decided to take my motorcycle out for a ride. Not a very long ride, only about a mile or so but when I got back I looked at the sight glass on the oil cover and it was the brightest, milky white you could imagine. I freaked out since I immediately thought that the head gasket was blown allowing coolant into the engine. HOWEVER......... after immediately changing the oil and driving the bike for around 30 or so miles to get the motor nice and red hot, the milkyness completely disappeared. A friend of mine is the head service manager at a somewhat local dealership and has built many many many endurance and racing engines for motorcycles and he told me that it is common with ANY engine that after sitting awhile that the condensation will form on ALL the internal parts of the motor. You notice it more with a motorcycle because of mainly one thing, they have a clear sight glass that makes it easy to notice. I don't know about you warm weather guys but I know that here in chicago, for the first week or so when the weather changes from the 30's & 40's to 50+ degrees, I can walk into the garage and much to my dismay, the entire bike looks like it's sweating bullets. I mean EVERY inch of the bike is covered with water. ANd sure enough when I take it for it's first ride, the milky oil is there. BuickNailhead, Have you taken the truck out for a nice long ride allowing the engine to thouroughly heat up for a long enough period for the oil to burn off all the accumulated condensation? After changing the oil of course.
No your not dumb... my title is correct as well..I had Oil in my water as well as water in my oil....... I just thought I killed 2 birds with one rocket launcher by listing as visa versa, Sorry to confuse. BUT! On a wierd note.... I have been driving the bitch all over and I put some "Iron tite" in the rad to help out. (ceramic coating) and checked the oil.......everything seems to be ok for now... I won't hold my breath on this one... but we will wait and see.. Just like to thank you all for your 2 bits. Anything and everything helps. Thank-you very much. Shiny...... you build fun shit!!!!!! the freeway speeds are a hoot !! hahah! k.. gotta go burn some rubber... NAILHEAD
Hehehehe Its a neat lil truck. I hated to sell it but you know how it goes. Glad you got it all sorted out. Are we gonna see you this w/e? If not I'll be over for the Torchmen Bash......Shiny
Draggin is onto something here. its condensation alright. if youre running a pcv valve you might need to check on it and the related hose. also with the related pcv, you need to make sure that if youre running a valve cover breather, that its not clogged. folks think its for venting off crankcase gases but they are wrong. its for filtering air into the crankcase itself. the air then circulates through the motor picking up moisture on its way then gets sucked into the cylinders through the pcv and burned off. ive owned several smallblock chryslers and its always this way. they for some reason have issues with water in the block, especially after sitting a while (like over winter). in high humidity places (like my hometown in the south) ive seen them build up milky gook in just an evening sitting there. if you blew any gaskets, you would've noticed like overheating, low oil pressure and the like. but if shes running fine maybe a bit on the cold natured side ill bet a 40 thats what it is. if you dont want to deal with all this, you might consider a pan-e-vac set up. it uses the whistle effect to siphon moisture and ring blow-by gases straight into the exhaust. basically it pulls a small amount of vacuum on the crankcase itself. this makes for better sealing at the rings and snappy throttle. but be warned if your motor has some age and the bearings arent up to snuff, it can and will suck the oil out of the motor all together. hope this helps.
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