Can you please tell me why their is a yellow sludge in the rocker box of my x-reg vuaxhall astra but is not in the oil when i pull out the dipstick.Could you please give me a rought price range to have it fixed.thank you!
Normally becaise you never drive it down a motorway at an indicated 75MPH for 1/2 an hour. & tyat's the solution.
This is the stuff commonly referred to as mayonnaise. It occurs mostly, but not only, in cars used for short journeys where the engine does not reach a high enough temperature for a sufficiently long time to evaporate off the condensate.
Price to have it fixed is the price of the fuel to go for a nice long drive, at least a couple of hours. It doesn't start to go until the engine is fully warmed up.
Steve
If there's no oil in the water, or water in the oil, it's probably just due to short runs and wants cleaning out. My old Astras seemed very prone to this and the breather pipe would fill up with sludge too.
Si
The message from rovers contains these words:
Bet you do a lot of short runs - to the school, to the shops - a few miles at a time.
The stuff is called "mayonnaise" and it's a water/oil emulsion. Normally there shouldn't be enough water in the oilways of the engine to allow this to happen, but if you're doing short trips water from the combustion gasses which blow past the piston rings condenses on the inside of the cold engine and forms this creamy emulsion.
Now - that's /usually/ the cause. If it is - then you can get rid of it by getting a bicycle or walking the kids to school or whatever it is that's causing all the short trips.[1]
The other possibility is that you've got a head-gasket failing. If the cooling water in the header tank is going down then that's probably your problem.
[1] Insert usual disclaimer about disability and so on.
It's most likely it's simply condensation. You should take it for an 'Italian' tune up. :-) IOW give a good long run. Long enough for the engine heat to dry it out. Mike.
I have this onmy '02 club 1600 8valve.
Vauxhall's response was that it it normal (I wrote to theier customer services and aksed)
My dealer says the 16 valves are worse.
It happen in the winter - condensation around the filler cap. The filler cap is the highest point of the engine - the rocker cover breather is lower. It seems to disappear as soon as I replace the Vauxhall oil used in the servicing with Magnatec. But that might be coincidence.
I clean it out weekly.
I drive 30 miles each way each day up and down the motorway to work.
My old 1800 8 valve, and my older still 1300 8valve didn't do this, the breather on those was above the level of the filler cap. Maybe there's the answer.
I'm about to try blanking-off some of the radiator grill during the winter to cut the airflow over the rocker box.
and yes, it P*****s me off too!
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