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My oil looked like chocolate milk!

Hi, I just had the head gasket replaced on my 1991 Plymouth Sundance RS

2.5 TBI 3-spd auto back in the middle of December 2004. The car had 196,000 miles. Before the head gasket was repaired, I had apparently been getting water in the oil giving it the appearance of a chocolate milkshake.

Now, here's the story:

The blown head gasket was diagnosed back in July 2004. I couldn't afford to fix it at the time. The only symptoms I had at the time was exhaust gases getting into the coolant causing it to overflow into the puke tank due to the pressure; no milky oil. However, before this happened, the only symptoms of a blowd head gasket I had was bubbles in the puke tank. Anyway, after it was diagnosed, I continued to drive it. Eventually, I started getting billowing white smoke out of the exhaust. And, lastly, at the end of October 2004, I apparently started to get some coolant in the oil (I don't think I had too much ethylene glycol in there, though, because I ran the car on pure tap water after the coolant started to leak out bad and kept adding water every other day). At first I didn't know that this was the case. I just noticed that my oil started to look a bit dirty and funny, so I figured that since the oil was in there for over six months, it was a bit old, and I would change it when I got around to it. I also noticed that my car was skipping when I first started it.

Later on, one day at Wal-Mart during my lunch break, I decided to take my car over to TLE (Tire Lube Express) to get the oil changed. While I'm in the lounge eating my lunch, the TLE associate pages me to come over there. Holding the oil dipstick, the person tells me that I need to take a look at something. So, I go out there with him to the TLE bay and see what's up. When the fellow inserted the dipstick into oil, the oil came back looking like Chocolate Milk! The level on the stick was also 2 inches above the full mark. He also opened the oil cap, and there were white goblets inside the valve cover looking like someone had done liposuction in the engine. He opened the radiator cap and told me that the radiator was empty. They said that they couldn't changed oil due to liability reasons or something like that. His partner told me told me that the head gasket was ..beyond.. gone amd that I needed to get it fixed IMMEDIATELY. He said something about it affecting the bottom end or something (though I'm not sure). He also mentioned that the engine needed to be flushed as well. Anyway, I hop into the car and drive to the repair shop immediately.

After two weeks, the car was fixed. They told me that cylinder 1 was full of water. They also did a valve job on the head, and they shaved it as well since it was warped. The machine shop also cleaned the head. Suprisingly, the head was not even cracked considering the engine overheated over a dozen times in that year! I think that they might have also flushed the engine as well to get all the goblets/sludge out. Otherwise, they said that the engine is still solid.

Anyway, after the repair, the car seems to run pretty well as far as I can tell.

Do you think that I did any damage to the motor by driving with water in the oil? What usually happens when you drive a car with coolant in the oil? I think that I drove it like that for around 30 miles or so before I got the head gasket replaced.

Reply to
Robby2687
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Time will tell !!

Reply to
loulou

Hard to say for certain without seeing the engine torn down, but it is very likely that you have done damage to the bearings, oil pump, cam, etc. When you get water, coolant, etc. in the oil, it no longer acts like oil nearly as well is it should. This can allow wear due to metal to metal contact and corrosion to polished surfaces such as the cam from the water. Driving a car in this condition is simply stupid beyond belief.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

Antifreeze loves to eat the babit off the engine bearings.But since all your antifreeze was gone and the added water leaked into the oil this shouldent be a worry,but with that kind of milage you want to use a good grade of a 10w-40w motor oil.

Reply to
nitro

True. I believe myself that the antifreeze had already completely leaked out before it got into the oil. The mechanics told me that they didn't find any glycol antifreeze in there as far as they could tell; it was just water that was in the oil. I wonder if plain water is less toxic to bearings compared to antifreeze. This might be why I got lucky.

Reply to
Robby2687

Or perhaps I got lucky and caught it in time.

Reply to
Robby2687

Yes, it is hard to say - especially since the block has 196K miles on it!

Run it till it stops on you! As posters stated, time WILL tell.

But now it sounds like you have a good engine head with 196K on the block. No one can tell for sure what happened to the rings during overheating. No one can tell you what happened to the bearing surfaces by the "chocolate milk". To deal with wear use a heavier (at operating temp) oil. That is why you should go for 5W-40 or 10W-40 oil (instead of, say 5W-30) and change it regularly with the filter. You might still get 100K miles out of the block even with some wear. remember there is 196K miles on the block!

You could get the compression cylinder pressure checked - it will tell what is going on in one part of the system and an oil pressure check with a mechanical pressure gauge will tell you what the "tightness" of the lubrication system is like.

JUst a couple of things that may ease your mind, but still, there is almost

200K miles on the entire car! It can also have many more trouble free miles on it...

OTOH, you could be hit by someone running a red light and your vehicle could be totalled........

If it is running use it and maintain it as best you can. Replacing it will cost you too....

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote: ...snipped because you all read it.....

Reply to
Ken Pisichko

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