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Oil in Coolant 302 efi

9K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  Rhett Walker 
#1 ·
G'day,
Need some help. Have a 302 96 lane. Car has done 130k. History is a bit sus. I don't think it has been looked after. I replaced original leads, plugs, hoses bout 2000k ago, also cleaned MAF to fix ping. When replacing hoses, noticed the bottle was brown. Investigated and found oil in coolant. I flushed bottle and block. The oil was a creamy paste. My mate and I thought perhaps someone might have put it in there to stop rust... have heard that they did this with old V8's. Anyway, recently did a water pump, and after I replaced that I had a look and found more oil in the bottle. Have also found that the hoses are lined with oil. I am not using any engine oil... not sure where it comes from?!? My mate reckons it smells more like trans... it does smell a bit funny to me. The engine runs perfectly... no sign of any problem... it is worrying me though. Any ideas?
Cheers.
BTW - there is no coolant in the engine oil. Just oil in coolant.
 
#2 ·
Hey Nifty,
My unlcle had a 96 Fairmont 302, that did some weird things too, no matter what you did to it, it would alwyas overheat, countless recond radiators, water pumps, thermostats, they would all work for a short time then wammo, hot as hot and would over heat. I know it sounds irelevant however for some reason the odd late model injected windsors had really weird bugs. His also used oil, could never work out where it was going as it never blew smoke. These engines are plain weird.

If you have some kind of oil in your coolant and not in your sump (have you checked that) then its unlikely to be a water jacket crack. Check your auto trans fluid if that milky after it been running for a bit. Failing that, why not try a ten dollar bottle of stop leak. There is one with floating metal filings that I've had excellent first hand experience with.

If its none of those things all I can think of is a hose or pipe going somewhere it shouldn't???

My uncle is a Mechanic who specialised in Fords and Chryslers back in the early 70's, he often says that the best coolant and radiator inhibitor is some sort of oil. I can't remember what it was, something like neatesfort oil or something like that.

Hope some of this helps

Goodluck on finding your Gremlin.
Regards
 
#3 ·
Thanks Rhett,
Have no water in sump. It did get a little warm last September last year when the plastic tank on the radiator split... apart from that it has never overheated. It runs cool, and runs damn well. I just don't like seeing oil in the coolant. My housemate (he's into rods) says not to worry about it.
Will check trans fluid after running and post results. I thought of putting in some stop leak. It is not a huge amount of oil. I wasn't sure if stop leak would achieve much in this case. I may try it.
Cheers.
 
#4 ·
If it got a bit hot one of the pistons may have garbbed the side wall and cracked a water jacket causing minute amounts of oil to seep into cooling system. You may not notice water in the sump coz it would probably evaporate. Apart from that, thats all I can think. Being a new car I doubt its been rebuilt or re bored so I doubt that happened.

Anyway, I'm sure the ol' girl will keep on running beautiful for years to come regardless, windsors have a tendency to keep on keeping on!
 
#5 ·
nifty_bloke said:
G'day,
Need some help. Have a 302 96 lane. Car has done 130k. History is a bit sus. I don't think it has been looked after. I replaced original leads, plugs, hoses bout 2000k ago, also cleaned MAF to fix ping. When replacing hoses, noticed the bottle was brown. Investigated and found oil in coolant. I flushed bottle and block. The oil was a creamy paste. My mate and I thought perhaps someone might have put it in there to stop rust... have heard that they did this with old V8's. Anyway, recently did a water pump, and after I replaced that I had a look and found more oil in the bottle. Have also found that the hoses are lined with oil. I am not using any engine oil... not sure where it comes from?!? My mate reckons it smells more like trans... it does smell a bit funny to me. The engine runs perfectly... no sign of any problem... it is worrying me though. Any ideas?
Cheers.
BTW - there is no coolant in the engine oil. Just oil in coolant.
if its an auto check the breather system on the auto and wehre it vents , I know the valve on the auto vent system can fail so maybe some sort of vaccum thing is happening when cooling down ?
 
#8 ·
I reckon you boys are spot on. Particuarly since I have found no water in the trans fluid or oil. The pressure the trans fluid is under I would expect is greater than the cooling system... if a small leak has developed in the trans cooler it would leak oil into the radiator, but not the other way around.
I decided I would take the thing in and get the trans serviced. I believe you have to drop the pan to replace the fluid... I am led to believe there is no plug?!? I can't be bothered with that... at the same time i will get the cooler checked for leaks. Will post the result in a week or two.... I need other transport to do this... my bike is still in the shop getting repaired!
Cheers fellas.
 
#9 ·
Or you can do what I did to my VS Commodore, drill a hole in one corner and tap in a plug, works every time :shh:
 
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