Oil in coolant

teaguespeed · Post by **teaguespeed** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:21 pm

Ok, so for a long time, i have been getting a ton of oil in my coolant overflow tank. Its pretty gross. What could be the cause of this?

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:36 pm

Head gasket?

ciper · Post by **ciper** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:38 pm

You sure its not transmission fluid?

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 9:34 pm

Oil - head gasket or cracked head

transmission fluid - transmission cooler in radiator

Steve

teaguespeed · Post by **teaguespeed** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 5:38 am

it definitely could be the transmission oil i guess. its just very murky and brown.

i have an oil cooler off a mororcycle, how difficult would it be to slap it on there and rerout the transmission oil to that?

ciper · Post by **ciper** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 7:54 pm

If it was leaking into the coolant and you bypass it then coolant would leak out.

teaguespeed · Post by **teaguespeed** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 7:57 pm

ciper wrote:If it was leaking into the coolant and you bypass it then coolant would leak out.

hmmm... yeah i thought of that, but i'd rather have a small leak of coolant than oil in the coolant. Could the cooler benefit the transmission?

ciper · Post by **ciper** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 8:22 pm

Yeah! Ive added a transmission cooler to many cars. You should flush your coolant, drive around for a while and then get it either analyzed (I think blackstone can do it) or get the coolant sniffed.

snowjob · Post by **snowjob** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 12:54 am

Option 3 is to go to a wrecker and pull a rad from a turbo car for $35...but I'm just being a smartass, as I'm sure you've already explored this option.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 1:05 am

If you fit an external transmission cooler couldn't you cap off the ATF lines on the radiator after cleaning it out? You'd get a little coolant pooling down there but it might be okay, right?

There's another possibility we didn't consider -- your oil cooler may have developed a leak.

teaguespeed · Post by **teaguespeed** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 9:18 pm

snowjob wrote:Option 3 is to go to a wrecker and pull a rad from a turbo car for $35...but I'm just being a smartass, as I'm sure you've already explored this option.

actually i havn't

...

teaguespeed · Post by **teaguespeed** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 9:20 pm

vrg3 wrote:If you fit an external transmission cooler couldn't you cap off the ATF lines on the radiator after cleaning it out? You'd get a little coolant pooling down there but it might be okay, right?

There's another possibility we didn't consider -- your oil cooler may have developed a leak.

what oil cooler?

good idea with capping off the lines.

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 9:29 pm

the one between your oil filter and the engine block., unless you have a later year engine in your car.

teaguespeed · Post by **teaguespeed** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 10:38 pm

THAWA wrote:the one between your oil filter and the engine block., unless you have a later year engine in your car.

i had no idea there was an oil cooler in my car, sounds like something i wouldnt know what to look for. so i can get some kind of test to tell if its transmission fluid or oil? how much would that cost me?

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 10:52 pm

or you can try taking it off the next time you do an oil change and test it for leaks that way

Aerotech · Post by **Aerotech** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 4:58 am

Are you constantly adding engine oil, or Tranny fluid? There's your source. I have the same problem, it's coming from the engine, ends up floating on top in the coolant resevoir. More shows up when I drive it hard.
One thing; this will quickly destroy your coolant hoses, they are oil intolerant... I've replaced ALL of them twice now. You'll know it's time when they swell up like overdone pasta, and your big rad. hose breaks and strands you somewhere. KEEP A SPARE SET of rad. hoses with you until you fix the oil problem. It costs $180 for the fullset of hoses from Subaru.

I replaced my turbocharger w/ a WRX td-05 in hopes it would fix the leak, (it's liquid cooled, ya know?) no dice. My next step is the oil cooler. The cooler is what the oil filter screws onto, an aluminum box w/ small coolant hoses running to it.... a misnomer, really, it's a heat exchanger.
If that doesn't help, looks like I'm facing a headgasket job....at least it's an opportunity to get the heads worked over! What puzzles me is there's never coolant in the oil, which was the case on my old 4-Runner when the head gasket went bad on it.

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Oil in coolant

Oil in coolant