Visceral

iTrader: (1)

well, bad luck hits again.
I'd like to prefeace this by saying that I have talked to Jayson at MTI, and he is totally supportive. They will fix whatever is wrong.

However... before I ship my car a few thousand miles, I'd like to figure out just that... What is wrong???

Engine has about 1000-1500 miles on it. Its an all-bore 4.125" resleeve with stock stroke. Ive been very easy on it while wearing it in. less than 4500 rpm and alot of variance. I finally got a clutch put in that can hold the power, and so this last week I finally took the engine up to 6200 (the shiftlight) through 1-4. Great stuff. These all-bores arent torque monsters, but they def. have the horsepower.

Then my low oil light comes on under normal driving. I check it and its a little, but not alot, low. If fill it up... but the light doesnt go out Maybe totally unrelated.

After driving on Friday for about 4 hours, the car starts to overheat... very slowly. Not some runaway condition... just a slow creep up. So I pull over and let it rest. Let it cool down and drive home. Here at home I pull the radiator cap. Its really low, but the resevior says full So I fill it up. No white smoke from the back of the car... no other weird signs. Here comes the weird part. When I fill it up, a thick black dirty sludge rises to the top.

Heres the rag that was clean before I started dipping it in the radiator cap opening:



Here is some coolant that I pulled out of the radiator. Its 1500 miles old:



Now... everyone is already thinking that I either blew the headgasket (the blue fel-pros) or I dropped a sleeve.

But... Heres the kicker... Theres no coolant in the oil that I can find. Which is totally backwards.

I really dont feel like pulling the heads... Ive done that too many times in my life.

Anyone have any ideas whats going on? If its something simple, I'd rahter not ship the car cross-country just to have MTI fix somethign trivial...

A couple other bits of info... The car, when refilled with coolant, is fine (probably for another 4-5 hours of driving), and I dont see any major fizz or bubbles coming up in the radiator if I run the car with the cap off.

Just for the hell of it, I put some Aluminum Bars-Leak in the radiator and I'll see what it fixes, if anything.

thanks,
Chris

slyws6

oil in the coolant but no coolant in the oil. Sounds to me like a headgasket, if I remember correctly a few of the coolant ports are on the bottom of side of the heads and possibly the gasket blew and one of the oil passages above the coolant ports is leaking down into it. Maybe just a thought.

-Sly

Visceral

iTrader: (1)

So here's some more fuel for the fire. All plugs looked pretty good except for #8, which is pictures above next to a "normal" plug from #7. Notice the #8 has some pretty serious crusties on the tip, but not alot on the actual electrode. What it DOES have alot of is oil on the threads... wtf? Im wondering if the head is just cracked and oil is getting onto the spark plug threads through the crack and then very slowly into the chamber. This could be also (the crack) the way that the oil is getting into the coolant. Every once in awhile, when starting the car, it puffs some oil-smoke out the exhaust for about 3 seconds. Maybe once every 5-10 starts.

hrmmmmmmmmm....

fozziejared

iTrader: (1)

i would have to say head gasket. symptoms sound just like it. or maybe rings on #8 piston gone to have oil on the threads of just it. do a compression test on #8 maybe and see if you hear air leakage. it is a stumper.

killer01ws6

Do you have a powersteering cooler?
Have you checked it if you do?

Visceral

iTrader: (1)

no...but thats a really good idea. I wonder if the powersteering fluid would go into the coolant, or if the coolant would also leak into the power steering resevior.

I really need to find out where all that coolant went... I assume through the tailpipe slowly enough to not make clouds.

MyLS1Hauls

iTrader: (2)

If the headgasket is blown, you could be getting some combustion byproducts into the coolant. I recently had that problem with my snowmobile motor...slight loss of coolant, motor got warm at weird times, coolant was dirty/oily...then finally the gasket completely let go and you could smell the burning coolant and it filled the cylinder to the point of hydrolock.

WAHUSKER

iTrader: (4)

Geez Chris, you are having fun! The P/S cooler is a good idea. Or maybe tranny fluid if it's an A4. But that #8 looks like it's burning oil + anti-freeze. Black & cakey. Although the oil pressure isn't usually strong enough to push back the anti-freeze, so when you blow a gasket you generally see water in the oil. You don't have an oil cooler, right? Maybe you have bad valve seals + a problem in a combustion chamber?

Mark

Visceral

iTrader: (1)

well, the bad valve seals doesnt work because this head literally just came back from MTI having had the seals completely inspected.

Im wondering if its time to pull this head again. I just put it on.

There is some data to suggest that the Fel-Pro head gaskets arent "all that"...

But I can make it past alot of things... Hydrolock isnt somethign I want to visit with this motor.

Randy WS6

iTrader: (69)

mine did the same thing and it was the power streering cooler, is you problem with the 99 ss if so it has a power streering cooler on it.I had to add fluid about once a month, it took me a while to figure out the two, loss of fluid and oil in radiator .The power streering pump put out more pressure than radiator .But like you say it's may not be it but may help some body later

slyws6

I'm guessing you have to replace the power steering cooler, how much do these run? Just curious because I have noticed some similar looking *gunk* in my coolant.

-Sly

Randy WS6

iTrader: (69)

Got mine off e-bay for $15.00 you can go to junk yard and get them for 15 to 25 dollers

slyws6

sweet deal thanks

BOWTIE

OK, lets take a shot at this. Unless the LS1 gets oil to the top differently than all other Chevy V-8's then it gets oil to the valve train through the pushrods (I am pretty sure that is correct). If that is the case there is no pressurized oil passages on around or through the head gasket, so the oil could not be coming from there. If the head gasket was leaking, then you would have either water getting into the oil (cooling system is under pressure) or combustion pressure, gasses would be getting into the water. This would generally cause rapid over heating, however, I guess it could start out slow. You would be able to find this by running a leakdown test on all of the cylinders. This still would not explain the oil in the water unless you also had some guide/seal problem and/or ring problem causing excessive oil contamination in the same cylinder that had the leaking head gasket (posible, but not likely). Our cooling system are notorious for trapping large quantities of air when be refilled, it is possible this air buble could have finally burbed itself out causing the low radiater level and possibly allowing the sensor to read more accurately, since they do not seem to read accurately when exposed to an air pocket. It is also possible that the block was not perfectly cleaned inside the water passages after the machine work which would result in some oil contaminated coolant. I would try and run a leak down test and if all is good, jack the car up in the front as high as reasonable and refill the system (this will decrease the chance of trapping air) while the car is running. If everything looks good at this point, consider flushing the cooling system to clean out any crap, and refill the system. Of course thsi is providing the power steering cooler is not the culprit. Then I would look to the valve guides/ seals for the oil and smoke problem with that one hole. Good Luck.

Visceral

iTrader: (1)

wow... this power steering cooler is a great idea... And thats great someone else has had the issue. I can eliminate that by taking it off and totally inspecting itor bypassing it and running the cooler and looking inside it for leaks.

With the combustion gasses, I really think I would see more bubbles and overflow typically... and a more rapid overheat.

But who knows. I still dont know where the coolant would GO though if the power steering fluid was leaking in. maybe thats a seperate super small headgasket leak? Sounds weird.

thanks everyone... this forum is better than some say it is... Its not all "How is this cam?"

Randy WS6

iTrader: (69)

maybe you did not get all the air out of your block!!!!!

Scalpel

iTrader: (4)

That black stuff is Coastal sealer than MTI puts in the coolant of their dry sleeved setups.


I had the same stuff in mine (black, slimy stuff). I have no issues with overheating or anything, though.

Visceral

iTrader: (1)

hrm... I recieved the engine from MTI with no coolant in it (installed the motor myself). I dont think they would have put block sealer in without any coolant, right?

hrm. If it isnt power steering fluid, which I'll determine, and Ive patched up the leak that must be somewhere in the coolant passages (the aluminum stop-leak), then maybe I'll just scratch my head and move on... I really think that finding black slimy stuff in your coolant should be out of the norm

Visceral

iTrader: (1)

I guess it could have moved a super huge air packet around from the head swap.... but .... I doubt THAT big. I had to add like 3+ cups of coolant.

Jay 95WS6

gm dexcool when it is open to air (cooling system not full) will turn into a dark brown gel around the filler neck and cap GM has a tsb out on grand prix's for it but a low system will do the same thing..... just another thing to check

Jay