Kerry Chadderton

Just when I get this car sorted out something else happens! I just notcied water in my oil after a 400 mile trip. There were no signs of trouble until I pulled the dip stick. I have not overheated the engine. Compression is excellent. I caught this early apparently.

The coolant level went from "Full" to "Add" within a 200 mile return trip so we are looking at a fair amount in a short period. In your educated opinion am I looking at the dreaded oil cooler seals , or the head gasket?

I did do a search on this for "OIL IN WATER" and "OIL COOLER LEAK" and found nothing. Is the search thing a little weak? I know I've seen this topic before.

I'm going to Clark's Garage now. Thanks for your help!

Yarf

Search produced this link:
http://members.rennlist.com/tom86951/headgasket.htm

pnbell

i'd say Oil Cooler Seals.

but Pull your spark plugs; If they are really Clean that can be a sign of coolant getting in the cylinders (head gasket) also you could take a long q-tip (or something) and dip it in each spark plug hole to touch the top of each cylinder and see if there is coolant in there.

Does your Expansion Tank look like there is (has been) oil in it? Oil Pressure is much higher than Water Pressure so generally Oil gets into the Coolant; before Coolant gets into the oil...

Kerry Chadderton

Hey! Nice thread on the head gasket.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of head gaskets go from time, rot and overheating. Compared to my past experiences, this is an enormous amount of water in the oil for a mere 3 hours running time. I just replaced the water pump, belts and hardware so the cooling system had been flushed (rinsed, no chemicals or pressure). It is still clean with no signs of oil.

I'm still counting to 10 on this new find! I was finished with the mechanicals, the new dash had arrived and I was discussing paint with another shop. What a kick in the nads!

I'll read the plugs, do the leak down tests and proceed from there on Friday. Thanks again guys!

944hal

All good suggestions. I just pulled the head from one that had water in the oil. Suspected a bad head gasket but it turned out to be a #4 cracked cylinder wall. The motor was slowly loosing water over a period of time but when it finally let loose it would blow water out of the expansion tank on compression. I'm sure this isn't a common happening and hopefully, it's not your problem.

Kerry Chadderton

I'm only resurrecting this thread to tell you the bizzare outcome. So...I bought the seal kit for the oil cooler but did not have time to do the work. The car sat in the garage for nearly 5 months. I had to move it for some reason and after running it for 10 minutes there were no signs of water in the oil! I changed the oil and filter, again, topped off the coolant and went for a drive. No water! It's been over a month now and no problems. In fact, a small front crank seal leak has stopped too!

The Porsche gods have smiled upon me. Or.. they are toying with me. Waiting until I'm 100 miles from home!