Overheated, now water in Oil

|When an engine overheats and water gets into the oil, what is the most likely |cause and is there a way to test?

Look for a crack in the lifter valley, about an inch or so down from the head surface.

I pulled the heads last night and they are on the way to the shop. I didn't look at them too closely, but did look at the head gasket real hard trying to find where it was leaking. All pistons had equal carbon (expected this as copmression tested good) and after tearing the head gasket up while removing the heads, I could not see anything that looked like it had been leaking. Should I have seen something? Since the block was still full of water, I don't think I got it too hot (didn't fry it or burn any paint off of the heads). The motor didn't die when I throttled back and restarted (turned slowly though and did kickback, probably from preigniting). The temperature gauge only went as high as 210 but the sender is a bit removed from the heads so it was sensing steam temperature. Cannot say how hot the rest of the motor was. Still wondering if there is any other way water could enter the oil as I'm not sure I found a problem yet (unless the shop tells me they found a crack)?

Thanks again to all who responded and will respond.

Bobby

Thanks for the note and yes, I'm sure there was water in it. Can't say I did anything to put it in there (didn't sink it, let it get rained on, wash it or anything like that). Scratching my head as to how else water would get in there.

It sounds likely to me that you got a small leak either through the head gasket or intake gasket.

Have the shop measure the heads to see if they have been surfaced before, if they have, it changes the relationship between the heads and the intake manifold. Thicker gaskets can solve that problem.

Check the flatness of the intake manifold gasket surfaces with a straight edge, look for warpage.

If there are no cracks in the heads or intake manifold, I would glue it back together with confidence. Following the torque sequence on both the heads and the intake manifold will assure the gaskets get properly squished.

Happy Boating

I'm an advocate of posting "the rest of the story" as I often read a thread but never know what acutally fixed the problem or what was the final outcome. Anyway, got the heads back today and the shop said they were warped enough to have been a problem. I will repost if this didn't fix the problem, but pretty confident. Won't have gaskets until tomorrow.......

Thanks to those who replied! Bobby

Make sure you straight-edge the intake manifold too. And find out how much they took off the head gasket surface, like I mentioned before, it changes the relationship between the intake manifold and head when you machine the head gasket surface on the head.