I just finished my road trip. I'm finally home. It was 13148 miles over 24 days. Got to meet Jayro88 and other people all over Canada and the U.S.

I still have no performance issues and i'm not losing motor oil or tranny oil. However, I still got gunk accumulating at the top of the radiator. I'm going to do a big flush to see if that'll help clear out the radiator. I want to use a couple bottles of the prestone flush fluid. Is there any risk with doubling or tripling up?

 

Glad you made home with no major problems

 

Wow that's an average of close to 550 miles per day! Not bad, not bad at all.

Looking forward to hearing the outcome of your situation. This would be one of the more baffling experiences I have heard of....

Good luck with the flush. Let us know how it goes.

 

It was good to put a face to a name. Too bad you didn't have more time to hang out. We could have checked out the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum.

I wouldn't think that doubling up on the flush would hurt as long a it wasn't done all the time.

I am thinking I may start some designing on a veggie oil system.

 

Update: I tried to drain the radiator, and there is so much goop, that is just plops out of the drain plug. I had to pull the lower rad hose, and it is sludging out. Probably at least a half gallon of sludge so far. I let it drip all day, then I closed everything off, and poured in some coolant flush liquid. Then topped it off with hot tap water. Tomorrow afternoon, i'll drain it and see if it flows better. When I look in the radiator top, there is goop all over the fins and walls of the interior. It will take ages to get all that gunk out.

I think I need something stronger than Prestone coolant flush. Anyone know of a really strong coolant flush? Should I use a degreaser? Would that cause any long term damage to the radiator?

Lastly, I'm still trying to think of what is faulty on my oil-coolant system? The oil cooler and its seals must be ok, since I've done that job twice. I doubt I pinched a seal or got two faulty oil coolers in a row. My next theory is if the oil cooler mounting caps might have a pin hole somewhere. I recently bought a back-up oil-cooler with the mounting caps, so I might install that and see what happens. But first, I'd like to have the oil out of the radiator, really clean. If possible....

Other than the oil cooler, oil cooler seals, oil cooler caps, and oil cooler gaskets, is there anything else that would put oil in the coolant, without contaminating the engine oil or without affecting IDI performance?

 

Is it possible that it is not oil? I would think you would notice the oil level dropping.

I remember reading a while back that if the SCA level is too high it can cause sludge. Maybe there was a previous build up.

 

I'm pretty sure it's oil. It's grey in color. When it sits out in the sun, it turns to black and feels like typical old engine oil.

But I don't know for sure. I doubt it's tranny fluid. I haven't added a drop since I dropped the tranny to install the TC. Then I filled the tranny and it hasn't lost any.

The only thing left would be diesel or SCA's, but i doubt it's diesel. As for SCA goop, i read about that, but I've flushed this three times now since the last time I even used SCA's.

Gotta think about this.... After looking at the Head Gasket photos, I just don't think there would be a HG failure anywhere a oil guide is to a coolant path. I think checking the oil cooler caps is my next best bet.

 

Update: I went out to see if the coolant flush did anything, and as I predicted, it didn't do anything of value.

Anyone out there know of a product that I can pour into the radiator that will thin out or break down the oil? I really need some help. There is oil all over the coolant system. I need a product htat will thin the oil, and will not damage the engine or coolant system.

 

Anyone know where I can find an "oil emulsifier" in the U.S.? I read all about it on teh European forums, but not much here.

 

You may have to pull the radiator and take it a shop and have them vat and boil it. That is if y'all still have radiation shops out therr

 

I had my radiator rodded out, and put back together around 6 months ago; they also pressure checked it. The cost was $125.

Aside from that, I remember when I was a teenager, the oil cooler on our 6.9 van went out. My father used Dawn soap, ran that through the engine for a little while without issue. The Van isn't running now, but after he did that, we put another 80k on it, and the oil residue did clean up.

 

I considered that, but my radiator is just the tip of the iceberg. I have a tee installed for doing coolant flushes. I unscrewed the cap, and there was a teaspoon of oil. I looked down the lower rad hose, and it has a film of oil all over it. What I really need is a chemical that will do a decent flush. I'm hoping this emulsifier is the golden ticket. I found a place in northern California that sells it, and it's a radiator shop.

I read about Dawn dish soap, but the reviews are mixed online. Something about how if it foams up, that'll be a problem. I'd rather do the emulsifier for now, since I read they don't foam.

I suspect my heater cores are gummed up, as well as my heat exchanger and hotfox fuel pickups. This is a nightmare.

 

oh yeah, one more thing, I was reading up on engine oil dyes, and I was wondering if they would be detectable in my coolant? I get that it will be visible where it seeps from my valve cover, but would it be noticable in the floating gunk in my coolant?

Here's what I'm thinking? I run the emulsifier and clean out the oil in my coolant. I pour in the oil dye. I drive the van for a few days. Then I check the coolant. Would I notice the oil dye in my coolant, assuming my leak still exists?

My plan is to determine if my oil in my coolant is just gunk residue from a prior flush, or if i still have an active leak. Since I'm not losing any engine oil on the dipstick, i'm kind of confused what is going on. Anyone have experience with diesel engine oil dye?

 

I would use 2 or 3 gals of super clean drain all the coolant and fill it with super clean and run it for awhile dump and flush. This stuff is a degreaser it does contain some caustic soda so don't leave it forever

 

No direct experience with this, but it sounds like a good plan. I do know that fluorescent dyes are very persistent. You could do a "lab test". Put a small sample of the dye into, say, a quart of cheap gasser oil, mix thoroughly. Then put a spoonful of that oil into a sample amount, a quart maybe, of old (but not otherwise contaminated) coolant. Mix thoroughly. Then test that substance for the dye. That's a "proof of concept" of whether the dye from the oil would show up in the coolant if it infiltrated it.

That is at the heart of this mystery. I recall stories on the Saturn site, of people switching from that abominable GM Dex-Cool to (or from) conventional anti-freeze, and not COMPLETELY flushing out the old stuff, and as soon as the two formulations mix, weird '50s Sci-Fi movie blob substances from Neptune start gurgling around in the system. Your experience sounds eerily similar, esp. given the absence of oil loss.

One thought - just for the time being, until you get this thing figured out, I would bypass the heater cores, just to paint them out of the picture for now. You may be going through several contamination / decontamination cycles in the process of nailing this down; would simplify things a little bit, anyway, not to have to do the heaters every time.