Oil In Water

Hi All

Just to update on progress with my R reg 2.5TD. The adding washing up liquid to the coolant, running the engine for a while seems to get all the oil into suspension. Then overfilling to float the oil out of the system also works very well. I did 3 treatments over a few days about a month ago and the coolant has stayed oil free since. Before this it never crossed my mind that each time I drained down and changed the coolant the oil got left on the sides of the header tank and pipe work only to reappear in the header tank and be there next time I looked to convince me that it was new oil leaking in. So I had decided that the head gasket was OK and was going to fit another oil cooler. Then last night the low water light came up just as I drove off so a quick look by street light into the header tank and could see lots of little brown bubbles particularly when the engine was revved. Decided that this was a classic head gasket failure symptom. Topped up and carried on. Investigated in daylight this morning running in the drive with the rad cap off. Exactly as last night lots of little brown bubbles, must be a definite head gasket leak. Then I had a thought that with the flushes to get rid of the oil I had added nearly a bottle of washing up liquid. Bent a bit of wire in a loop dipped it in the coolant and found that I could blow soap bubbles with it. Agitated washing up liquid makes lots of little bubles so the head gasket job is off until we see if a good flush and new coolant gives me an oil free/ bubble free header tank.

Regards

XMexc

Hi XMexc,

Look on the bright side - at least its kind to your hands

Cheers

noz

Hi All

Put a good secondhand oil cooler and pair of rads into the R reg 2.5 this morning. Will see how it goes. Could still get the rads in and out from the top despite the complication of the aircon rad. Just needed to take out the 4 bolts holding the front panel and ease it forward. Have now decided that there were two separate problems, a leaking oil cooler and a leaking small radiator. So will see how it goes for a few days just to be certain that there is nothing wrong with the head gasket before doing a rad system flush to get rid of the last of the oil and an oil change just in case the old oil cooler let things go both ways.
Anyone know how to check the coolant system for air on an aircon 2.5TD. I stuck the extension bottle on the header tank and went to check that the fans cut in the 3 times. Only the aircon cuts the fans in straight away this weather and switching off at the control panel does not make them cut out.

Regards

XMexc

Very strange......With engine at less than 90c 'ish' shouldn't the fans only run with aircon compressor running. Have you got an aircon fan stuck relay?

Maybe this is a diesel peculiarity and my 2.0CT certainly doesn't do this. (digital aircon panel).

could be a coincidence but in the last week i have found my fans coming on all the time meaning the engine is running at a lower temp than normal (down to 85deg ish).

the air con has been on so it could be the aircon is demanding cooling over and above the needs of the engine. it was not a conscious trial by me but i'm sure when i turned the aircon off on one journey the engine temp was normal with fans kicking in at about 100-105deg.

i have not had the aircon re-charged this year so it is not quite as efficient as normal. maybe this impacts how the aircon cooling works.

Hi All

Did an oil change on the 2.5 last week and checked just to make sure that all was well with the Rads and the replacement oil cooler. I was really surprised to find the oil in the water was back with a vengence. After I put the secondhand cooler in about 6 weeks ago there was no sign of the oil returning so I stopped checking after a week. On this basis I automatically concluded that this new flush of oil in the header tank much worse than ever before was because the head gasket had finally gone and resigned myself to doing the head. Today I decided to flush the oil out just to protect the rubber hoses from degrading. Pumped out the header tank and after about an inch of oil got reasonable coolant. Played around with topping up with clean water and thought the oil was clearing so looped out the oil cooler and gave the system a good purge. Gave it a full bottle of washing up liquid and seem to have got rid of all the oil. Will run it for a week and see if any oil comes back. Looks like I need to sort out a definitive test for secondhand oil coolers before I fit them.

Regards

XMexc

Hi XMexc

Sorry to hear of your woes, I'm not going to encourage you a lot with what I am about to say. My last but one 2.1 td had oil in the water from the time that I bought it and despite a change of head gasket oil cooler, and numerous flushings with detergent, it still had when I sold it! I can only conclude that there was a crack somewhere in the block or head, that was allowing high pressure oil to leak into the system.

Peter.N.

Hi Peter

Thanks for the glad tidings, perhaps I should get the spare engine ready.
Have just put a dishwasher tablet in the header tank to see how that gets on with the fairy laced coolant. In theory if the oil cooler is leaking and I leave it as it is now with no pipes on it then the water side should slowly fill up with oil until it starts dripping out the downward facing pipe. In fact it might be worth dipping the upward facing pipe now to see if any oil shows on a dip stick.

Regards

XMexc