fuel in coolant?

[veggiemike]

Oh crap. My coolant overflow caught my attention today while i was pulling codes. Normal blue coolant color showing through the plastic, except for the last half inch... Which is brown. Opened the overflow bottle and took a sniff... Smells strongly of gas. Wtf!?! Isnt that a symptom of cracked head, head gasket, or block? And if i had any of those, wouldnt i be having some other severe symptoms?

 

[rz5.0]

Not possible

 

[veggiemike]

If not gas, then oil? I definately have a layer of something brown floating on top of the coolant in the overflow. I tried to get a picture, but couldnt really get a good one. Looking down inside the container, it's clearly a brown fluid. Radiator is a year old, just had coolant flushed a week ago at valvoline...

 

[rz5.0]

Oil very possible. Have you checked your dipstick for water. Could be a head gasket

 

[veggiemike]

Havent checked the dipstick yet. Will do that in the morning. If I do indeed have a blown head gasket, am I going to do further damage if i keep driving around for a while before I tear down and replace it?

 

[akaslick15]

not to steal anything from you bro but im on the same page except i smell gas in the oil so my brother said look for a milky residue in either the coolant cap or oil cap then u possibly got a blown head gasket and your basically fuc*ed not saying you do but check for it

 

[AaRoN]

That smell of fuel in the coolant is from exhaust gases entering the system. Could be a cracked/warped head or block or a damaged head gasket. The head gasket is most likely the issue.

 

[RockstarMentality]

^ What he said.

 

[veggiemike]

Ok, my only real symptom other than the oil and smell in the coolant res is that my cooling system has been "not quite right". I have't been full on overheating, just occasionally running a little hot (in R-M-A rang on the gauge). I thought my water pump must be going... Old car and all. I just checked my oil dipstick, looks fine.

So the question now is, how frantic should i be about fixing this? Can it wait until I can afford new H/C/I? Should I stop driving the car entirely until I fix it? Or somewhere inbetween...?

I'm hoping I can replace the gasket myself to save the $$$. How do I determine which side to replace?

 

[russ8825]

Do yourself a favor and replace both while you have everything off. Nothings worse than taking everything apart then doing it again 6 months later because the head gasket on the other side went. If you had a couple spare bucks, now would be the time to trying and pick up a pair of gt-40's cheap and throw them in.

 

[veggiemike]

Yeah, I'll replace both sides. I'm pretty sure this has been an underlying problem for a while now... Without too much consequence. Sure hope the gaskets dont give out entirely any time soon... It'll probably be 2 or 3 weeks before I have a chance to fix 'em.

I'm pretty tight on cash at the momment... So heads will have to wait. I do have an explorer intake and fox falve covers sitting in the garage, though. I'm thinking tear down to replace head gaskets and install new intake and valve covers while i'm at it.

Any recomendations on head gaskets? Or pointers for the install?

 

[rz5.0]

Factory replacement. Its easy and cheap.

 

[Paul]

If you popped a headgasket bad enough to put that much oil in your coolant, there would be other symptoms. Just my humble opinion.

Paul.

 

[extreme_21]

If not gas, then oil? I definately have a layer of something brown floating on top of the coolant in the overflow. I tried to get a picture, but couldnt really get a good one. Looking down inside the container, it's clearly a brown fluid. Radiator is a year old, just had coolant flushed a week ago at valvoline...

If you noticed this "brown fluid" on top in the resevoir "after" you had a coolant flush, could be the flush fluid used by the valvoline shop you went to is slightly still in the system.
To verify if combustion is in the coolant, there is a test kit you can get(I have one from snap-on) Comes with a fluid and syringe with 2 stages. Fill the syringe with the fluid, jam the syringe in the top of the rad(air-tight but do not contact coolant) suck the air from the rad through the syringe, and if the fluid starts changing color..suspect head gaskets cause combustion is present..no change in color and no combustion present..etc
But do not jump to conclusion till you get it diagnosed correctly, because it could very well be like I said, stuff still in the system from the coolant flush..
Also to check for coolant in the oil, let the car sit overnight(do not start nor crank), loosen the oil drain plug(do not remove)..if you start seeing water/coolant drip out, you then have a leak..if oil drips out with no trace of water/coolan..there's no leak

 

[veggiemike]

Stopped at Napa on the way home today and ordered a kit to check for combustion in the coolant. It'll be in tomorow. Then we'll see.

 

[AaRoN]

Block testers are neat.

 

[veggiemike]

Dripped a couple drops of oil out of the pan this morning after sitting all night. No coolant, just oil. And dipstick looks fine, too. Am I correct that this rules out coolant leaking into oil, but doesnt necesarily rule out oil and/or combustion gasses leaking into coolant?

If the combustion test on the radiator comes back negative, could this just be leftover coolant flush? With eratic cooling due to failing water pump and/or thermostat? The two symptoms together made me imediately think head gasket... Actually, I've also got one O2 sensor throwing codes (172, if i remember). I had written that off as a bad sensor, cause why would just one side of the engine be lean...? But that sensor might be fine if the head gasket on just that side is leaking... Right?

 

[russ8825]

Cooling problems could've been air pockets left in the radiator too. Just and idea.

 

[extreme_21]

Dripped a couple drops of oil out of the pan this morning after sitting all night. No coolant, just oil. And dipstick looks fine, too. Am I correct that this rules out coolant leaking into oil, but doesnt necesarily rule out oil and/or combustion gasses leaking into coolant?

If the combustion test on the radiator comes back negative, could this just be leftover coolant flush? With eratic cooling due to failing water pump and/or thermostat? The two symptoms together made me imediately think head gasket... Actually, I've also got one O2 sensor throwing codes (172, if i remember). I had written that off as a bad sensor, cause why would just one side of the engine be lean...? But that sensor might be fine if the head gasket on just that side is leaking... Right?

Yah if the test comes back negative, that would indicate no leaks of combustion into the coolant. That said, I'd shoot towards left over gunk from the coolant flush. You could always remove the overflow bottle and clean it out(and visually check in your hands what this gunk is, I'd also clean out the overflow tube from the rad cap to the overflow bottle just incase it's clogged from the gunk that was left over..originally the hose is not secured just pushed on so "make sure you secure the hose with hose clamps", slight leak of that hose will cause overheating and coolant loss!! Had the hose leak for me and traced the fault for couple hours till I saw it bubbling.

Like the last person just posted, you could also have air in the system, by doing a vacuum bleed of the cooling system, this will assure all air is out(it's a tool/kit you can get to bleed the system). If there is air in the system, vehicle will have a poor cooling system..overheating at times or all the time..no heat from dash vents...etc

For the water pump to be bad, usually the pump will start to leak from the seep hole indicating the bearing/seal is failing and leaks the coolant through the seal/bearing and out the seep hole.

For the O2's, there not hard to access, I'd swap the O2's and see if the fault travels with the sensor to the opposite bank. For P0172, don't jump to the sensor at fault..could even be something like a blocked pcv or catalyst making the mixture rich

 

[veggiemike]

Finally had a kid-free hour to do the combustion leak test. Came back negative. Thats good news cause i dont have to replace the head gaskets, but frustrating because i dont know why my cooling system isnt quite working right.