When doing my oil change , I let the catchcan drain . There was a chunk of ice frozen in the botom of it .

My thought is that where it is mounted under the drivers door outside of the frame rail , it is not protected from the element's and its been really really cold here this winter .

But why would there be water in my oil ??
I'm running T6 synthetic 5w40 in the winter and I was changing it at about 4500 miles .

Any thoughts or ideas .

 

My thought on the catch can when I was thinking about doing it was, why bother. The stock sytem works just fine. So what if there is a little oil vapor in the induction system, the engine runs on oil. I think Rich (Tugly) took pics of the inside of his intercooler and only had a few drops in it. Others have also experienced the same when cleaning theirs. As for keeping the pipes and boots clean, make sure the clamps are all tight. Thats just my opinion. On the other hand I understand trying to improve things, and just plain tinkering.

 

I'm betting because of the distance from the warmth of the motor, it probably cools very rapidly after driving and causes a substantial amount of condensation. This could freeze, and would likely expand while freezing which makes it look like much more water than would in liquid form.
I'm no chemical biologist, that's just my $.02

 

One source for water is from condesation during heating and cooling cycles, just like frost on your windshield. Water is also a biproduct of burning any hydrocarbon fuel. Blowby gasses in your crankcase contain some of this water vapor. Because of the cold weather and the distance to your catch can, the water vapor from both sources condences and drops out into your catch can.

 

I agree with everyone that it is condensation. Also I am going to guess that you are running a open ccv system. Which is letting in damp or wet air in when the truck isn't running. I run a catch can and it has been a cold wet one this winter and I don't have any issues but my catch can is next to the master cylinder and I run a closed system (looped back into the intake).