How can I tell if I'm seeing the signs of cylinder liner pinholes?

Does this mean a complete rebuild?

What is the cost range?

 

Welcome to FTE. I guess it depends on what vehicle you are talking about, and what engine. Do you have water in the oil or oil in the water? Is it a diesel? If you have holes in the cylinders, I would do a rebuild. A diesel will cost a lot more than gas. Why do you think you have a cavitation problem?

 

7.3L, 95,pwrstrk. Oil seems off color, tinge of yellow on dipstick, hard to notice.

coolant in oil is what I suspect

 

You might want to post in the PSD forum. Those guys can tell you more about it, and how to tell for sure. There could be other reasons. Not everybody reads this forum. Good luck with it.

 

if its cavitation means you need a new/reman block and heads. truck still running good? have you had a oil anlasis done to comfirm what it is? could be a bad injector cup. you getting anything in the coolant? how many miles?

 

I am trying to think of what could put coolant into the oil and not the other way around and can only come up with a bad set of head gaskets in my mind.

 

yeah what kwik said....forgot head gaskets...can get through the front cover also.

 

You shoud get a used oil analysis done. That is the only sure fire way to determine if there is coolant in the oil. You may be pulling your hair for nothing.

Coolants in oil tend to make the oil a milky white sludge, not yellowish. Most oils come in different shades of "honey" straight from the bottle.

Coolant in your oil will often leave a creamy substance on the oil fill cap as well.

 

The first sign of cavitation is usually coolant in the cylinder (hydrolocking, broken parts, etc.) not coolant in the oil...

Duncan

 

Thanks to all for the advice. Hopefully I can get it checked out tomorrow.

 

where do you guys get oil analysis done?

 

Actually coolant still shows up in the oil as the piston has to move up and down on the sleeves past the pin holes.

Checking the oil for % AF is the fastest way to find problems, and could potentially save your motor from catastrophic failure.

Check out the Oil and Lubrication forum on how/where to do a UOA. Bobistheoilguy.com is another good place to find out about UOAs.

 

what is AF?

 

You can get Oil analysis from Blackstone Labs.
WWW.blackstonelab.com I think

 

Anti-Freeze or Coolant