Quickin

Besides a crack in the block or heads.

Also, the head gaskets were perfect, so its not from that.

All I can tell you is: My valve guides/seals were all (all 16 of them) toast, leaking horribly. 8 broken springs and one very slightly bent valve.

Thanks.

conan

iTrader: (5)

You just named the 3 ways for oil to get in to the water. Did you have your heads looked at after every thing took a **** or just replace every thing?? Might have a crack in the head some where. You could disasemble the heads and get some dipenetrant film spray it will show you if theres any cracks.

Quickin

The heads were thoroughly checked and rebuilt by a very good head shop. How do I know if I have a crack in the block while the engine is in the car? The only thing I can check is for leaks on the exterior of the engine, which there is NONE.

I also have no coolant in my oil

He told me to take my fingernail or a rqazor blade and run it across the sleeves from the inside towards the outside to see if its perfectly smooth where the sleeve seem meets the block walls. On 3 of them I think I felt a tiny bit of the seem, but a tiny tiny bit if anything, so they didn't drop.


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Orange Peel

iTrader: (20)

If you have a oil cooler or a tranny cooler going to the radiator it could be getting in that way. We did a 383 on my friends '95 Z28, and for the longest time it was getting oil in the radiator and coolant, there was no blown head gaskets, etc, and we saw NO water in the oil. After a LOT of headaches, and searching, we came to the oil cooler it had on it, and that was the problem, it was leaking into the radiator. So we took that out of the loop, cleaned the crap out of the radiator, etc, and since then there is NO oil in the coolant.

Take a look at what runs to the radiator from the motor, then rule that out if nothing is there.

Quickin

I have a tranny cooler, no oil cooler though. If the exterior lines are clean, where would the leak be?


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Orange Peel

iTrader: (20)

It will leak inside the radiator when it "cools" it through the pass through. The lines where clean on my friends oil cooler too, but it think it was pulling it in when it passes through the radiator, very weird. We just took the line off the cooler and bypassed it and it works perfectly. Take a look down there and see what you can come up with.

Quickin

I don't have an OIL cooler though. Just a tranny cooler, does ti still cause oil to get into the coolant if there's a leak somewhere?

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Orange Peel

iTrader: (20)

If it's the factory cooler that runs to the radiator, there's a possibility it would get in there and you probably couldn't tell if it's motor oil or tranny oil in the radiator after it gets mixed together. It might not even be this issue, but if you are using an aftermarket cooler that bypasses the radiator then I doubt you have this issue. Just trying to throw something out there you may not think about.

EDS01SS

iTrader: (30)

yup your right...you wont be able to tell what type of oil it is in the coolant. I just got done replaceing my powersteering cooler with a universal cooler because i was losing powersteering fluid and had no leaks.Guess where it was going...straight into the coolant.TY LS1TECH since this is where I got the idea to look there because I didnt even realize my car had a powersteering cooler on it.

Orange Peel

iTrader: (20)

Ed - cool call, he has a WS6 so he may have the PS cooler too, check that as well Quickin, if you have a nice silver tube in between your upper radiator hose that goes to the water pump, you have one and there's another source to diagnose.

Quickin

My power steering fluid is full and I haven't had to top that off since about 2 years ago Damn, didn't even realize its been that long.

So, my stock oil cooler can be leaking????

I guess if I just go to a radiator shop they will be able to tell me if I have a tranny/oil "cooler" leak from inside the radiator?

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Orange Peel

iTrader: (20)

Doubtful, the radiator shop will test it for pressure, etc, but probably won't be able to see if there is a leak, but who knows, if they are good they may be able to pump some dye through the cooler lines and see if the water changes color or something.

2 things though when you figure it out, you will need to clean the radiator/sytem with some Dawn and water, just run a small amount of Dawn through the cooling system and flush a ton of times. Then you will need to remove the overfill tank a clean the crap out of that too, this is NOT a fun task to tackle, it's hard to pin point what it causing the oil to get in there, but when you do, cleaning is a PIA!!

EDS01SS

iTrader: (30)

Oh great thx lol I havent gotten to cleaning the overflow bottle yet.Oh fun things to come lol.

conan

iTrader: (5)

Sorry for the head sudgestion I have a M6 so I dont ever think about the oil going through the radiator. Hope its just that and not a block problem.

Quickin

so whats the easiest wqay to test for the types of leaks you're talking about?

I can try to suck the crap out of the overflow tank I guess, with a badass wet-vac.

Orange Peel

iTrader: (20)

I don't know how to test for leaks, you can try to call a radiator shop, or just take the cooler out of the loop so it doesn't go through the radiator, clean the crap out of the system, run it for a few days and then see if there is any oil in there again, if so, it's not the cooler. Like I said, this is not a fun task to try out

EDS01SS

iTrader: (30)

well here is one way to test it if you have a air compressor with a air nozzle or even just a small air tank. Plug one of your tranny cooler lines with a plug or whatever you can find that will create a good seal,then using approximately 5psi of air pressure put the nozzle at the second tranny cooler line hole.Pop the cap off the radiator,if the cooler is leaking you should see bubbles in your coolant.

Quickin

So if I see bubbles it will be tranny fluid thats in my coolant, right? Not oil?

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EDS01SS

iTrader: (30)

Yes if you see bubbles in the coolant after applying air into the tranny cooler then i would say thats your problem right there.

Quickin

Will tranny fluid get black and sludgy and look like little BB's floating around? It also completely gums up the spring on the radiator cap.


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