Oil in coolant?

[GTOX]

Somehow i'm getting small amounts of oil contaminating my coolant. The car runs fine (no overheating), there is no coolant getting in the oil and i'm not really sure how it's getting in there. Can anyone suggest the first place to start looking.

I have taken my radiator off not that long ago, draining more than half of the coolant and then topping it up with a different brand coolant and water wetter (I know I should have flushed it all out properly, then re-filled it) but I wouldn't think this could cause any issues.

I can sometimes see small amounts of oil floating in the coolant when I take off the radiator cap, there was also some (black) residue underneath the radiator cap and a little build up in the coolant overflow tank.

Any suggestions?



P.S. Maybe I messed something up when doing the 60K service, even though everything seemed to go well, no idea...

[stealthee]

Ringlands.





Seriously though are you sure you just don't need a good flush? My overlfow bottle looked horrid and I had no oil contamination.

Maybe flush the coolant system, remove the over flow bottle and rinse it and start fresh. If it gets contaminated again then you might have a minimal headgasket leak.

[GTOJOE]

^^^Headgasket is the only thing I can think of where oil could get in the coolant. The only other place where oil and coolant are in close proximity is the turbos... but not sure how this would allow oil into the coolant.

[GTOX]

Yeah thanks guys, the thing is my coolant was always immaculate then one day I checked it and saw the oil. I think I will do a full flush when I install the new radiator I have here, then monitor it and take it from there.

I thought that because the usual head gasket problem signs of overheating and white deposits under radiator cap weren't present it might be something else.

[TUFFTR]

Do exactly what Stealthee said, Full flush and then keep an eye on it.