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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?

Head gasket?

You sure its not transmission fluid?

Oil - head gasket or cracked head

transmission fluid - transmission cooler in radiator

Steve

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?

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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 ...

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.

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

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?

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

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.