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So a good friend of mine has a 99 that has been acting up lately. Losing power stuttering after warm up. Started over heating and losing water. He came out from work and now it acts like it's hydrolocked. Oil level is way high but not milky. Sludge in coolant reservoir. Possible water has settled out of oil to the bottom of oil pan? Sounds like a headgasket to me. Seems if the oil cooler was bad there would just be oil in coolant. Can Headgaskets be done in truck on '99 up? I ask that because there is limited space in my garage. Any good tips tricks or links would be great. Thanks.
The oil is pressurized inside the cylinder head at up to 3000 psi, so nothing is getting into the oil in the head. If coolant is disappearing but is oil level is increasing, it stands to reason that coolant is getting in the oil, although that is not necessarily true as there could be two separate problems. It should be milky if it's been driven like that, so I would try to drain a little bit out of the oil pan and see what you get. Water is heavier than oil, so any water should collect at the bottom of the pan and come out first. If you get oil there instead of water, see if it smells like diesel.
The results of those two tests should give you a better idea of what's going on.
So coolant will bypass into oil from cup and o ring failure? I am a little unfamiliar with 7.3 strokes. I'm and idi guy.
Water can only make it in through cracked injector cups up top or an oil cooler problem (or a cracked block). When running oil will go into the coolant if the cooler is the problem because oil pressure is the higher of the two. However, after shut down water pressure is higher and a cooler problem will let water go into the oil. Bad injector O rings will let oil into the fuel and/or fuel into the oil. If oil is getting into the fuel there it will exhibit itself with a black fuel filter, if fuel is getting into the oil you could see an increase in oil level and I would think that you should be able to smell it.
Originally Posted by andym
Water is lighter than oil,
I know that this was just a brain fart but it is the other way around, you got the rest of it right.
I knew what you ment and in my brain it just registered correctly so I didn't catch it. Hopefully we can get the valve covers off tomorrow and pull some injectors .
Ok so today pulled the valve cover off and this is what it looked like on the inside also drained the oil and there was a good amount of coolant in the oil. Also the fuel filter looked normal to me wasn't black or discolored. Looks to be oil in the coolant also not drained It yet. Could a cracked cup cause this much damage under the valve cover?
Also I'm thinking there was some type of fluid down in a cylinder reason being when he tried starting it the motor would just bump over as like it was coming up on compression and just won't turn over any further like it's hydrolocked going to get come clean towels clean injector holes up and see if it will bump over now with injectors removed on driver side.
If it's hydrolocked you could break something by bumping it with the starter. I'd recommend a wrench on the crankshaft or something. If there's fluid in there it will come out the injector holes, or maybe you could peek through them and see. You can remove the glow plugs from the other side to release pressure then go the starter method.
Edit: Oh, and removing the injectors lets oil into the cylinders, in case you don't already know. So you should get stuff out of them.
I'll have to try turning it over with the crank the reason I want to try see if it will turn over now should tell me if the problem was on this side (drivers side) or passenger side which injectors and glow plugs are still in place if it turnes over one would think the problem is on driver side side
Originally Posted by Walleye Hunter
If it's hydrolocked you could break something by bumping it with the starter. I'd recommend a wrench on the crankshaft or something. If there's fluid in there it will come out the injector holes, or maybe you could peek through them and see. You can remove the glow plugs from the other side to release pressure then go the starter method.
Edit: Oh, and removing the injectors lets oil into the cylinders, in case you don't already know. So you should get stuff out of them.
