Oil catch can full of foamy brown goo. Diagnosis?

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 3:48 am

I emptied out my oil catch can for the first time today. I've had it for months and it was definitely completely full.

What came out was foamy brown goo and it was mixed with thinner, watery-looking fluid. I could almost believe the thinner liquid was clearish synthetic oil, but that seems like a stretch. I'd say it looked more like coolant.

Whatha think? Normal or blown headgasket?

scuzzy · Post by **scuzzy** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:24 am

a large percentage of that is going to be ring blowboy.

normal? most likely.

Imprezive · Post by **Imprezive** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:52 am

well if you had a blown head gastket you'd know, and there'd be brownish liquid and bubbles in your coolant reservoir.

gt2.5turbo · Post by **gt2.5turbo** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 7:14 am

i vote head gasket. drain your coolent that will tell ya

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 11:55 pm

I vote normal.

206er · Post by **206er** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:11 am

before crying headgasket, I would do the following:
clean the can out, change the oil, run it for a few days, see what happens
inspect/flush the coolant, youre probably due for it anyway
have the coolant "sniffed" with a CO exhaust probe
keep a close eye on your temp gauge, if in fact the HG's are blown maybe you can catch it before a bad overheating happens.

when oil has a lot of water in it from a head gasket, it will look like a chocalate milkshake pretty bad.

ej22t · Post by **ej22t** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 6:17 am

check the oil cooler first, I did think my head was blow but endup I found it was crack oil cooler (don't ask me why it crack but I know oil and coolent did mix from there).
Check it first or you could by pass it since 92-94 don't have oil cooler and it shouldn't affact too much on the oil temp.

Good luck!

Ben

Manarius · Post by **Manarius** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:34 pm

rallysam wrote:I emptied out my oil catch can for the first time today. I've had it for months and it was definitely completely full.

You've had it for months? Are you sure that the oil just didn't separate while it was sitting in your can? Here we all are crying HG and it could just be a simple matter of oil separating when it got old.

sammydafish · Post by **sammydafish** » Wed Jul 05, 2006 6:56 pm

dzx wrote:I vote normal.

agreed, sounds like normal condensation to me.. don't listen to tthe rest of these fools... everyone always crys the worst crap on internet forums... it really is rediculous.

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 4:39 am

I'm going with normal too. The engine temp looks good (steady just below the middle of the gauge). I changed the oil and it looks normal. I opened the pressure cap and the overflow bottle cap - coolant looks normal. I emptied the catch can again after only a one or two hundred miles, and there was only a few drips of liquid.

I guess old, oil foam is just some funky funky stuff. I'll try to get a picture that does it justice.

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:13 am

EPILOGUE

Here are some informative notes from a FAQ on Nasioc:

Link:
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=754710

Why is my catch can full of water?

Condensation, most likely. It's almost certainly not something you need to worry about.

Blowby products (the filthy vapor in your crankcase) cool as they go through the catch can and associated tubing. As the temperature drops, water vapor condenses. This can cause a surprising amount of water to accumulate in the can. For example, I didn't check my can for about 5k miles over this last winter; poured out around half a liter of almost-entirely-water when I finally got around to it.

Adam West · Post by **Adam West** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:59 pm

Uh, check and empty the catch can? Never done it. Am I in for a surprise?...

dscoobydoo · Post by **dscoobydoo** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:52 pm

Still curious how you guys routed the tubes to the catch can?

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 12:19 am

Well, here's mine. I didn't do it and don't know much about it, so I can't promise that this is the right way.

http://www.thawa.net/gallery/albums/Ral ... oilcan.jpg

White tube enters the lower, left-side port on the can. You can see that the white tube is coming from a T in the lower right of the picture, where I think two black tubes are bringing blowby up from the engine.

Brown tube goes from top of can back to intake track.

Black tube goes from top of can to PCV valve.

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Oil catch can full of foamy brown goo. Diagnosis?

Oil catch can full of foamy brown goo. Diagnosis?

Re: Oil catch can full of foamy brown goo. Diagnosis?