Sounds exciting, eh?

If you're interested... this is the latest from me regarding an engine rebuild that has been cursed. See this post for an overview of the main problem, or this post for some of the more recent "troubleshooting."

Anyway, I've attached a picture of some "samples" of what came out of my oil pan a few weekends ago. The bottle on the left came out before what's in the bottle on the right. Obviously, most of the lefthand bottle is water. But then, I've got some chocolate-milk looking stuff... and remember that the righthand bottle is basically a continuation of the first. So that's the last of the chocolate-milk stuff, then followed by oil.

This is out of a car that hasn't been off of the driveway since its rebuild, and the engine has probably a net running time of two hours total (although that's a pretty random guess).

My guess is that the chocolate-milk looking stuff is antifreeze, and the black stuff is just some really dirty oil (don't know why it's so dirty on a "fresh" engine). I guess I just wanted to know anyone agrees with that being the case, or if I'm wrong (hope I'm wrong).

If it is coolant, obviously I need to find out how it got there and fix it so that I'm not running the engine with that condition. I'm thinking that, worst case scenario, something is happening between the head and the block (head gasket) that's allowing coolant to enter the crankcase (i.e. leaking from a coolant duct into a cylinder, then past the rings, which probably haven't seated yet). If that's the case, would a compression test tell me if there's something wrong?

As you might have seen, dheck has posted some pictures on here about what happened to his rebuild... he said he had some overheating problems too before that happened. This is really scaring the bejeezus out of me...

Thanks

 

There may be coolant in the one on the right, but I'm not sure. You know what water mixing with oil looks like now. The chocolate milk looking stuff is just oil mixed with water(like I said, there may be some antifreeze in there). But that water is clear, if there was antifreeze in it, it would be greenish.

A compression test may show you a head gasket leak. It won't show you an intake leak. I think you probably just got water in there(from when it rained, right?). Just make sure you get it out and make sure your coolant isn't missing.

 

You have water, a water/oil emulsification, and dirty oil - or as Stokley would label it, Gatorade.

What was the total volume of liquid removed from the sump? More than the sump was supposed to hold? What does the engine oil look like now?

 

Vader: I am not sure what the total volume was; I can say that you're looking at two full gallons of what came out in the picture, but there was definately more (I was using one of those round, wide, and flat plastic tubs made specifically for fluid changes, and it overflowed).

There would have had to be more fluid in the sump than it was supposed to hold; there was a full "load" of oil in it (no leaks, and probably only a little burned off), plus the water that got in.

As far as what the oil looks like now... there's none in it. I've yet to have the time to put the intake back on and, plus, I'm hoping that whatever nastiness that was left in the sump will have seeped towards the bottom by now so that I can drain it. I will say that the dirty oil that came out looks *really* dirty for a new engine that's never been off of my driveway (mabye new engines do that?).

What is this "water/oil emulsification" that you speak of? I thought that oil and water always separated out over time, no matter what you do to it (the stuff in the picture has been sitting for at least two weeks).

Glad to hear we don't think it's antifreeze!

 

The water/oil emulsion is the light brown stuff. Sometimes two immiscible liquids create an emulsion when mixed. You can separate it in a centrifuge if you'd like to

 

it looks like gravity is already doing that for him. The two contaners contain the water, then the suspended water/oil, and then the oil. Guess they all stratified int he pan while he was draining it out or something

 

another thing is that is really dirty oil. Maybe you have alot of blowby causing the oil to get that dirty. Is it running really rich?

 

dimented24x7: Actually, it was running pretty rich when I had it running. (But that could have had to do with the fact that my timing was screwed.)

What's blowby and why might it happen?

 

it was probably all the fuel and combustion deposits that caused it to get so dirty. I doubt it has blowby so soon. Blowby is basically exaust gasses geting past the rings and waht not and entering the crankcase. Makes things really dirty in the motor and causes alot of sludge over time.