Your wasting your time with the water pump, there is NO high pressure oil lines/galleries near the water pump to push oil in, the bolts (middle top 2 and bottom 2) will only seap splash oil out onto the outside of the water pump.

The only place where oil can get into the cooling system on these engines is the oil cooler. If it was coolant into oil then a whole different story.

 

It's engine oil. It's grey goo in the radiator. if you take a sample and lay it in the sun, it'll return to it's black color.

I'm very reluctant to believe it's the oil cooler. I changed it twice, with no reduction in the oil-in-coolant amount. Im going to change it a third time, and this time I'll replace the oil cooler caps as well, but i'm fairly confident that is not the problem. My only last hope is the water pump bolts.... i don't think they are the problem. Is there a seal or something that might allow some oil to intermingle? It's not the radiator and tranny cooler either.

 

I can see what everyone is saying about the water pump bolts being the unlikely source. All I know is after we changed the water pump, my oil in the coolant disappeared. Apparently, oil was getting past the gasket and into the water pump, so it can happen, at least to me.
It has been almost a year since, and still no oil in the coolant.

 

The leak isnt going to be in the copper and steel bundle. It's going to be in the o-rings for it at the headers. Did you have to use a jack, press, or vice to get the headers together? If so you didnt clean the headers or lube the orings right. I pushed mine together hand tight. If you have a spare one and o-rings mail it to me and i'll put it together for you.

 

I've done the oil cooler job plenty of times. I know about the "don't jack the ends together" deal. If the metal grooves touch, they won't slide together. I used vasoline on all my oil cooler seal jobs.

I made it back to Wisconsin where i have a place to work on this finally. I'll do the oil cooler ends and I'm still waiting for a water pump gasket to arrive, so I'll do that with thread sealant on the right bolts. Thanks for all your help while I limped this van back to my friend's shop from rural Manitoba.

 

i finally got to the oil cooler job. I pulled off my oil cooler. nothing seemed out of the ordinary. pretty much the same job as the two times before. Lots of oil coating the insides of my coolant passages, but that was to be expected.

I got another van oil cooler assembly on ebay months ago. I decided to pull it apart, use the caps on my new oil cooler (from the dealer), and install new seals. While cleaning up the ebay oil cooler, I noticed a crack in the smaller cap. So that was garbage. I ended up reusing my old oil cooler smaller cap, but trying out the ebay larger cap. It looked to be better quality.

Slid together pretty easy with vaseline. Reinstalled with new block gaskets. All went well. maybe now it won't leak.

i also took out those two water pump bolts. They didn't have much sealant on them, if any at all. I don't think they would reach the coolant circuit, but I cleaned them off, and reinstalled them with permatex. The oil on the bolts did reach all the way tothe head of the bolt. So maybe that could have been my oil infiltration. IDK. but I'll flush the system and do a few thousand miles to test it out.

 

Got a question ...

You say you put a sample of the goo on a something to let set or something like that.

How long did you let it set?
Did it pretty much dry into a black substance or remain greasy/oily?

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

within a few hours the edges of the goo turns black. within a day, it's all black. looks, smells, and feels like engine oil.

 

Vaseline is a terrible oring lubricant. I don't know why anyone insists on using it. It's petroleum based and breaks down at around 100f. It's for hands and butts - skin, not any sort of high heat or chemical environment. Silicon based oring lubricant is all you should ever use. Orings aren't perfect, especially at sealing against a surface that's been roughed up with disassembly several times. An oring isn't going to fill a scratch in aluminum.

Silicone oring lubricant coats the oring to allow it to slide better to prevent damage but also fill in small scratches similar to how Teflon paste seals pipe threads. This stuff doesn't break down or become liquid until 450f.

https://www.amazon.com/BOSS-02812CL0.../dp/B004VU8ZMU

You could temporarily run an external tyranny cooler, or get an air fitting to fit granny cooler and cap other side then pressurize with air and look for bubbles in radiator to eliminate that. They are just a coil of tubing in the bottom of the radiator.

 

I agree components have to be clean, free of corrosion, scratches etc ... etc ...

However, Just to be clear with the facts!
Silicone lube is the #1 O-ring manufacture recommended lubricant.
Petrolatum is the #2 O-ring manufacture recommended lubricant.

Never use Silicone on Silicone O-rings.
Never use Petrolatum on Buna (Without Nitrile) O-rings.

Always walk o-rings on, never slide or roll ...
Sliding on causes slicing, nicking.
Rolling on causes twisted o-rings.
Either failure will leak!

In this case they are Viton (Victor Reinz), Either lubricant is appropriate.

Most folks don't have Silicone lube, Most folks do have Petrolatum.

Not an argument, Just stating the facts.

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

But at what temperature does the vaseline break down? It becomes a liquid and starts pushing out of the imperfections its sealing at a low temperature where as silicone lubricant is good to 450F and will not liquify. Sure for cold water applications on non EPDM orings it would be fine but not anything over 180f or so. I know not many have silicon lube it, but for someone doing 3 oil cooler jobs its worth trying something new, since the last 2 times may not have worked.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you Shawn ... I get it!
Technically the lube is for assembly and is supposed to flush away, the system fluid is responsible for micro sealant (from inside out) and movement lubrication.

As an EX Heavy Equipment mechanic, Hydraulics are a major part of it, Unfortunately I've been put out to pasture!
I also realize we are NOT working with Hydraulics here!

-Enjoy
fh : )_~