There is oil in my coolant, please help!

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SilverBullet00 said:
HOWEVER, after draining the coolant there is no sign of water in the oil...For now I think im going to tear it down and look at the head gaskets..

There is more pressure on the oil side than the coolent side so therefore the oil is blown into the coolent and not the other way around.
Hopefully it's just a head gasket but the coolent passages and the oil passages aren't very close together so I wouldn't suspect that to be the issue but it is possible.
 
Well, at the end of the day it looks like the head will not pull out with the header attatched. Tomorrow will be a day spent bringing down the k member.

My only question is what happends if I pull the gaskets and the dont appear to be blown?
 
Have the heads cleaned and magnafluxed. If the gasket looks good, and the heads check out fine, at least you know you have a good set of heads for the next block, because that would mean you have a massive crack somewhere. Look that gasket over good, and look at all of the small passages around the cylinder walls. If you can, get some pictures up for us, as many of us on here might see something obvious. Good luck!
 
alright, I will get some pictures up in a little bit..

I got the heads of today. The passanger side appeared to be normal, but the driver side wasnt right. As soon as the bolts were loose the coolant started flowing out, its like the head wasnt seated very well on the block, however the bolts were tight....

Im taking the heads down to the head shop tomorrow to get them pressure tested, so we will see how that goes!
 
SilverBullet00 said:
alright, I will get some pictures up in a little bit..

I got the heads of today. The passanger side appeared to be normal, but the driver side wasnt right. As soon as the bolts were loose the coolant started flowing out, its like the head wasnt seated very well on the block, however the bolts were tight....

Im taking the heads down to the head shop tomorrow to get them pressure tested, so we will see how that goes!

After you removed the heads were you able to see any signs on the gasket face as to where a problem may be? Have the heads ever been off before?
The heads on the 4.6's generally don't have any issues of warping unless the engine was severly over heated. When the rad hose blew out did you shut the engine off right away?
Use rags or paper towels to soak up the antifreeze and then blow everything off with compressed air to make sure all the antifreeze is out of the cylinders, being careful not to get anything in the oil/coolent passages[you can block them with rags]. Then use a flat scraper or razer blade scraper to remove all of the gasket remnents from both the heads and the block, you can tell if they are smooth by running you finger along the surface. If you left some, go back and scrap it again as they must be very clean. Don't scratch the mating surface.:nice:

Edit: Oh, and before you put the heads back on put a thin film of oil on the cylinder walls.
 
ok, will do.. is there anything I can do to clean up the pistons? will it hurt to scrub them with the right cleaner?

also I am having the heads milled so they will be smoooooooooth, the block is the only thing I have to worry about. I have been told I can use a really fine grit wet sand paper with a block... what do you think about that>
 
SilverBullet00 said:
ok, will do.. is there anything I can do to clean up the pistons? will it hurt to scrub them with the right cleaner?

also I am having the heads milled so they will be smoooooooooth, the block is the only thing I have to worry about. I have been told I can use a really fine grit wet sand paper with a block... what do you think about that>

The pistons don't have to be super clean, just use a small scraper to clean off most of the carbon but be sure to remove/blow out all the loose carbon as it's pretty scratchy on the cylinder wall.
When not doing a complete rebuild we just use a good sharp scraper to clean the surface on the block [when doing a complete rebuild everything gets put in the hot acid tank]. I'm a little concerned about sanding it as you may end up sanding abit more in one spot than in others and create more stress in your life.
 
sweet.. got the heads on now. the shop did an awesome job milling them. The only thing I am concerned about now is the cams- I havent recieved them yet and VT said they shipped out a week ago (6/8 the STATUS said DELIVERED, which according to them means they were delevired to the shipping company). I have tried to call and email them all week and still havent got an answer.... :(
 
TweekedGT said:
Holy shnikeys! Blown headgasket for the win! Wow, that's a lot of coolant in the cylinders. Did you spill some in during the teardown or is that they way it looked after the heads came off?


LOL no way there was that amount of coolant in the cylinders before the heads were pulled.. even a perfectly good engine will look like that when you pull a head off.. no matter how well you think you drained the cooling system

what happens is when you remove the head from the block.. any left over coolant comes out of the water jackets and goes right down on top the pistons. I assure you it was not like that when the head was still bolted down...
 
svttech76 said:
LOL no way there was that amount of coolant in the cylinders before the heads were pulled.. even a perfectly good engine will look like that when you pull a head off.. no matter how well you think you drained the cooling system

what happens is when you remove the head from the block.. any left over coolant comes out of the water jackets and goes right down on top the pistons. I assure you it was not like that when the head was still bolted down...

To avoid that, after draining the rad, I take off the heater hoses and use a shop vac on the end of the rad hose to suck out the remaining coolent from the engine.
 
SilverBullet00 said:
sweet.. got the heads on now. the shop did an awesome job milling them. The only thing I am concerned about now is the cams- I havent recieved them yet and VT said they shipped out a week ago (6/8 the STATUS said DELIVERED, which according to them means they were delevired to the shipping company). I have tried to call and email them all week and still havent got an answer.... :(
How smooth is the finish on the heads? If your going to use factory MLS gaskets both the block and the heads must have a certain RA (30 or better) to seal properly.
 
97 gt with intake crack

hi, my name is tim. My 97 gt is in about the same predicament. I was driving to work the other day and I noticed that mt car was missing on the drivers side of the car. I didn't think much of it andwent on the work and went home. I thought I may have foud a spark plug because I had put a can of sea foam in my gas take to get rid of built up carbon that might be there. but any way, got home and checked my oil and it was 4 quarts low and the antifreeze is really dark in color. I got to looking and noticed there is a crack in the intake on the passenger side in the temp. switch or pressure switch. the crack is in the intake were the swich screws in. there is fluid running off the intake and collecting on top of the heads under the the intake. If anyone knows what may have caused this. please let me know.

I am getting ready to to do a head swap, but I have not all the pieces to do the swap all at one time.

thanks Tim