Hi All,
I just finished changing the head gasket on my '01 HX and I'm in a predicament.
When removing the cylinder head, there was a spill of oil which no doubt fell down between the cylinder sleeves and the block (see left side of block deck in pic). So now my fresh new coolant has signs of oil in it. Which also makes it very difficult to know if everything is fine and dandy with my new head gasket, and to be sure it's actually leak free.
So I'm looking for suggestions.

Should I just leave it as is and not worry about it - a small amount of oil in the coolant won't cause any problems will it?
Is there any other sign I can look for that might point to a problem with the new head gasket to know if the oil I'm seeing is a leak or if the oil is just contamination from before?

Thanks!

 

A "small" amount isn't really an issue, but if it were me I'd go ahead and flush (or at least drain) as much coolant as I can. A cake walk compared to your head gasket replacement. A good way to test if your new HG is leaking is to rent and/or buy a combustion gas test, which will identify the presence of exhaust gases in your cooling system. You can also do a compression test, but if memory serves me correctly this will only identify a blow between two cylinders, and isn't strictly designed for identifying a head gasket problem, if that makes sense. In the mean time, keep an eye on your coolant level and your temperature gauge. If it starts deviating from the norm, do NOT continue driving, unless you want all your previous work to go to waste. Pull over and cool it down. If you don't want to do any sort of testing, I've listed some common "issues" related to head gasket failure.

Causes for concern:
Overheating
Coolant looks like a milk shake (usually only occurs following major failure of the HG)
Mysteriously disappearing coolant and/or oil
White smoke from exhaust (after engine has warmed up and burned off all the water that condensed in your exhaust)
Bubbles forming in the radiator
Expansion/overflow tank is filled/overflowing and radiator is low on coolant
An oil 'sheen' can be seen in the coolant
Coolant smells of oil