what is in my coolant?!?! *pics*
 

ok, heres the story. the last time i drove my car, was monday nite, had a friend with a supercharged mustang who wanted to run so i brought the car out , did some pulls came back home. car ran great the whole time, no issues at all. fastforward to this morning, i start my car to let it warm up..... as i'm about to leave i go to close the garage door and notice a "pshhhhhhhhh" pressurized noise coming from the front of my car, so i look down and theres a puddle under my car. so i'm thinking oh shit, i pop the hood, this crap is just OOZING out the top of my overflow tank.....so i shut the car off and snapped some pics.

to me it looks like oil is mixed in there, its got a wierd consistency to it. the oil dipstick is clean, as is the oil filler neck. the coolant in the ast smells and looks normal as well. fwiw i run evans

ok onto the pics....

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...2/DSC00275.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...2/DSC00276.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...2/DSC00277.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...2/DSC00278.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...2/DSC00279.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...2/DSC00280.jpg

as you can see the tank is COMPLETELY full. last i had pulled the cap off of that tank was about 2 weeks ago, and there was NO sign of this brown stuff in there. my car never overheats, doesn't blow smoke, and isn't down on power. discuss......

oil

but how is it getting there??? if i had a bad coolant seal wouldn't exhaust gas be getting in there, not oil?

my other thought was my turbo is water/oil cooled

maybe.

what does your engine oil look like?

my engine oil looks completely clean, i just changed it about 2 weeks ago

maybe the evans reacted with it?
i've never used that stuf, so i wouldn't be any help with telling you what it would do when exposed to other chemicals, fluids, etc...

how long have you been running the evans?

i've ran the evans the whole time i've owned the car, the previous owner also had evans in the car when i bought it from him. so i'd say the past 3 yrs has been evans

freaky (and definitely not good)

that's a nice aluminum barf can you have there, though....where did you get it?

the shop that did most of the work to the car made it, he's pretty handy with a welder haha

blown seal somewhere...I'm assuming the turbo(s) is water cooled?

Jay, I definitly think the turbo may be a culprit here, just my $0.02

yea the turbo is oil and water cooled, so thats my only guess at this point. gt40r with MAYBE 2500 miles on it.........

those are some pretty sweet fused aluminum welds on that tank :) sorry to hear about your problem bumping in hopes to help you find the answer. as always when i talk to you tell X i say hello.

I would drain your oil and see if you notice any trace of Evans in it. Was there any smoke coming out of the exhaust while this was happening?

yea nothing coming out the exhaust at all, just the normal premix here and there and thats a pretty distinct smell.

i think at this point i'm going to pull the turbo and see what i can find there. DEFINITLY draining the coolant as i don't want any of that going thru my motor, oil will also most likely be drained before the car see's the road again too.


mono4lamar thanks for the bump i'll tell X you said hey :icon_tup:

Definitely drain the oil, as coolant-diluted oil can cause far worse problems than the oil that's already in your cooling system.

Hi I'm Juan From Puerto Rico , I'm Almost Certain That Your Problem May Be The Seal Between The Rotor Housing And The Side Housing That Has Been Broken Or Has A Nick And Its Mixing The Oil With The Water ...

what would other symptoms of this be?

It depends on which seal as it can also cause smoking out of the exhaust (which is why I asked that question). If it's an outer seal, you may not see any smoking as it won't leak anything into the combustion chamber.

you mean a coolant seal? where is that much oil coming from? the combustion chamber would be the only candidate and it should not have that much oil in it, just a surface coating.

well heres the thing that i found wierd. that overflow tank was filled with that oil mixture....but it was nowhere to be found anywhere else. the ast, the clear line i have running from the ast to the radiator...... none of those areas had a brown liquid in them. its like it alllllllll collected in the overflow.

does anyone else think it could be the turbo? or is that a stretch?

I'm with everyone on the turbo...

I'd drain the oil pan and the coolant system into seperate containers, send both samples off to Blackstone Labs for analysis (not expensive). I'd also run some clean oil through the motor and a clean run of glycol and a coolant system treatmen/cleaner a couple times to flush the passages and radiator out. Then fill back up with new oil and glycol/water mix... atleast until you find the problem. Evans is not only expensive but it also completely looses its ability to function as designed with ANY contamination what-so-ever.

_Kris

A blown coolant seal can let coolant into the combustion chamber, or combustion pressure into the coolant system. Oil cannot pass by a coolant seal. CAN NOT.

The only way for coolant and oil to mix in a rotary are if

1) a freeze plug under the front cover leaks, letting them both mix...since the coolant in the passages is under pressure (pressure from gravity if not running) the coolant will spill into the oil, not vice versa, since the oil is not under any pressure sitting in the pan.

2) an iron housing cracks on the facing, which is VERY rare and is ONLY the result of being left outside without antifreeze in the winter (I have seen this a few times before). I once took apart a 2nd gen core with a 2" square chunk of iron face GONE. This let all the coolant that was normally held behind the face, mix with all the oil that flows through the rotor.

3) the turbo is somehow allowing them to mix. I have never seen this, but it is theoretically possible.

Those are the only way I can think of for oil to get in the coolant or vice versa.

thank you very much for posting this, and reinforcing what i had thought. for that much oil to get into the COOLANT and not vice versa, dumbfounds me.

VERY good idea, i'm going to do this. will they be able to tell me if its amsoil or not? maybe by some crazy chance, someone put oil into my overflow tank? trying to cover every possible angle on this one lol