While toping up the coolant level in my TII S5, I noticed a bit of oil on the surface of the overflow tank and around the radiator cap. Not much, but enough to get me worried... I had the engine rebuilt less than a year ago and have only done 10K or so miles on it since. There was a little bit of oil in the coolant system from when I changed the water pump (since the internals of the pump were oiled for some reason), but the amount seems to have increased.

I've searched the forum and fc3spro.com but haven't found anything relevant. The FSM says to check for presence of oil in the coolant system, but doesn't say what could be causing it...

Anyone have any suggestions what could be failing and what I should check further? Could it be the turbo or worse, the engine block?

Thanks for reading,
- TT

 

Oil in the coolant is a bit of a worry. I'd take it back and get them to check it over. I've got coolant in the oil

 

seals are toast imo

 

It could just be scum, or oil left over from the build process. Unless you are burning coolant, then you are fine.

 

Which seals?

 

Why does everyone automatically assume rebuild your motor or your fucked>??!!

 

like aaron said, if you start burning coolant or losing coolant quickly then I would worry. The seals they are referring to are the coolant seals in the block.

 

At least I'm not the only one with unexplained oil in my coolant overflow.

 

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Yeah, I "skimmed" the oil crap off around the top of the filler neck and whatever I could reach in the overflow bottle. Will keep an eye on in in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully it'll be as Aaron said, just oil in the system after the rebuild...

I'm not losing copious amounts of coolant, although have to top it up every now and then. The reason I had it rebuilt was because of failed coolant seals and I'm not getting the same symptoms any more, so that's a positive sign. Suspect that coolant is leaking somewhere, but its not obvious. Will do a full inspection after I stop using the 7 as a daily driver...

Cheers,
- TT