Thread: Water in oil

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Data: 454, Edelbrock alum heads and intake, Mobil 1, GM engine assembly lube, 200 miles on rebuild

I punctured my radiator, lost coolant in top half of engine. Refilled with water; ran engine without radiator cap, no water in exhaust, no cylinder gas in coolant, no water in oil. Put on rad cap, increased temperature and coolant pressure; got water in oil.

Planning to dis-assemble top end. Suggestions on what to look for? Gasket leaks, cracks?

Suggestions on flushing oiling system and remote oil lines/ remote oil radiator? Plan to remove oil cooler and drain it. Have old distributor set up to pre-prime oil system; thinking of using that to flush the system a few times.

Jim

Check compression, if it's ok you may have a water port to valley leak.

If a head gasket is blown, compression will be down on that one cylinder and perhaps the adjacent one.

Sometimes you'll see coolant dripping out of a spark plug hole or spraying out when you're spinning the engine over.

I don't know what kind of intake gasket you're running, but shim stock steel gaskets don't always seal well at the waterports - even if you use the supplied by the gasket maker adhesives.
Most times a thin bead of Copper RTV around the water ports will do it, but not always.

I've had very good luck making intake gaskets from .030 Vellumoid paper or the US made brand from CarQuest .030 paper that says, "rubber & fiber" on the label.

If your engine has the stamped steel bathtub that's part of the steel intake gasket you'll want to trim it down so it can be re-installed as a bathtub only.
True with the late big block Buicks (400-430-455), not sure about the BBC's.

I had problems sometime ago with my BB with water getting
in oil. This was a newly rebuilt engine. My problem was that
coolant was leaking down thru the head studs. I put a little
bars in the radiator, warmed it up, haven't had a problem
since. all the above suggestions are good. It could be 1 of
a number of things. Just thought i would share this with you.
r dobbs

If you lost the coolant, and it didn't leak before, something cracked. Probably a head, but you could be too lucky and it's just a head gasket. I never am that lucky.

If you running stock Cast iron heads you need to check the valve guides, I have seen water leaks around the guides if it been replace improperly of strached the surface of the guide wall when removeing old guides.

I pulled the intake and heads and found the intake gasket around the driver side front coolant passage not sealed tight to the head. I had used red RTV around all coolant passages in the gaskets. This one was he only one not sealed on all sides.

Any suggestions on head inspection for cracks? I have a Magnaflux test kit ( 2 spray on chemicals ) but have not seen any area that is questionable.

Jim