bcaslow

I read online somewhere that this problem is likely a bad head gasket, or that it could be a crack in an oil passage (that can not be fixed). This car did blow a radiator hose back over the summer, but I don't think my son drove it very long or far once it let loose.

I did a compression check, and all cylinders were: 170, 165, 165, 163. Car runs well, doesn't appear to leak any oil but does need some topping off between oil changes; but it has almost 200k miles.

I also thought that if it were blowing past a bad spot in the head gasket then pressure would build up kinda quickly in the cooling system -- which it doesn't. Is this a bad assumption on my part?

I was thinking of first just flushing the cooling system and watching to see if/when/how severe the oil gets in the reservoir, rather than yanking the head off to replace the gasket. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

ppithug

sounds like the radiator has an internal leak had the same problem on my explorer, replaced radiator and that fixed it.

cb9tuner

to me it sounds like a headgasket or a cracked head., see the only way oil gets into your cooling system is threw the engine milky residew happens when the colant and oil mix, on your car thier is no engine oil in or around the radiator only trans fluid.which is a seperate cooler on the radiator. , and is the resivoir full of milky residew or is it just like a little rusty water?

hondaccord

if the head gasket or oil passage blew then most likely you would notice coolant in the oil too. also does the coolant reservoir tank bubble, it is very common on a blown head gasket to do that. it would only possibly be trans fluid if it is an automatic, and I would find it odd that the tube in the bottom cap of the radiator blew.

hondaccord

ok it is auto i should read the title of the post,, it could of happened then, just not the most likely cause.

A_Rotary_Guy

If your compression is that good and the numbers are that close you can rule out a head gasket. If you had a bad head gasket your numbers would vary a decent amount between two of the cylinders. Most manufacturers state that even a 15-20 PSI difference between cylinders is normal still. Another easy way to tell if the head gasket is bad is to take off the radiator cap when the car is completely cold then start the car and watch for bubbles coming up through the cap. Another way to tell if it's bad is like you said, put a pressure tester on the cooling system and watch to see if the pressure jumps up quickly, indicating a leak into the cooling system.

Like hondaccord said, it could very well be tranny fluid. The trans cooler is built into the radiator and could very well be mixing into the coolant. The simple way to fix this is to replace the radiator and flush the cooling system to get all the ATF out of there.

Now about the oil consumption. Though the amount varies between manufacturers, burning oil is a common thing. Nowadays GM states that a quart every 1,000 miles is within specs. The general consensus is around a quart every 3,000 miles.

bcaslow

Ahh, there in lies part of my delima. Not only does the crank case dipstick show no sign of water, the coolant reservoir has black, greasy deposits all inside and especially on the outside of the reservoir tube/cap. I had once noticed the same thing all around the radiator cap. However, I wiped it off at that time; I checked the cap again and it was fine.

The coolant itself looked uncontaminated, so I seriously doubt it is the trans fluid leaking in thru the cooler portion of the radiator. I didn't think to check the trans fluid tho'....

Thanks!

bcaslow

Unfortunately, this is my son's car (17, Sr in high school who spends most of his time at his girlfriend's). What brought it to his attention was a smell, and he said a noise when he shut the car off -- which I just remembered -- so if the noise is bubbling from the radiator, sounds like a head gasket? Even with the even-ess of the pressures in the cylinders?

A warped head is warped: period. Correct? In other words, it's not going to warp more once the car really warms up, where a leak will occur then and not when it's cold/pre-operating temp?


Thx!!

hondaccord

well the warp would most likely get worse. there are different metals used in any modern motor that is going to expand and contract at different rates. thus when the motor is hot the clearances will be tighter then cold.

s0uk

i just helped my friend put an engine together, it sounds like you had the same situation we went through, we went through 3 head gaskets, had the head resurfaced and got new dowels for the head. instead of hooking everything back up and before putting the cams and stuff back on, just bold the head down, connect all your hose and run water through the radiator and pump it, wait like 2-5 min for it all to flow through, if you didn't connect your oil line, you should see water coming out of it, if you do something wasn't plugged up in there. my buddy took his head to get cleaned and he had to change his valves on piston #1 since it was messed up but we eventually had to use a diff head. that's how the oil got into the radiator and how it got to the whole block, head, and oil pan. unbolt your oil pan bolt to see if water runs through that too. i'm not sure if this helps but that's what we did to trouble shoot the problem...

he got his head pressure checked and all that good stuff too. we finally figured where it was leaking after 2 weeks of trouble shooting...