Water in Oil

[Mike Bartlett]

Hi All,

I have had my Cobra sitting in my garage for 6-8 weeks. We have had a ton of rain within that time so no drives during the weekend. We finally had a nice Saturday so I took my car for a spin. before taking off I checked my oil and noticed a bit of, condensation I think, on the dipstick and also on the inside of my valve cover breather. There was also a tiny bit of milky oil on the inside of the breather. The oil itself on the dipstick looked good. I drove it for about a 1/2 hour then returned home. I checked the dipstick again and noticed a little bit of milky oil on the stick. So, could this just be condensation in the motor due to the large amount of moisture in the air lately and it not being started for quite awhile? Or something worse?

The motor is a cast iron 427 S/O block with Dove HR aluminum heads and a aluminum intake. It has about 1700 miles on it.

If I do have water in my oil from an engine problem what is the best process to start checking things? I know it could be intake to head gasket leak, blowm head gasket, cracked head?

Thank for the help.....

Mike

[Tongue Pirate]

I just went through the same thing on my "Litte" motor. Pulled the valve covers & did a visual check. It appeared as if one of the rocker studs was leaking at the base. On the small blocks the rocker studs can sometimes run into the water passages. So I borrowed a pressure tester for the cooling system, pumped it up & before I could get to pressure I found the problem. Yup & that wasn't the only rocker stud leaking. I pulled the arms & put a wrench on them. The were hardly tight. The company who installed them for me didn't torqe them correctly. I fixed the problem & let it sit over night at pressure. The next morning I rechecked everything & sewed it back up. Good to go! It may be something minor just like this.

[Mike Bartlett]

Boy that sure would be nice. I'll put that on the list. Good idea about pressurizing the system.

Thank You,

Mike

[Eljaro]

Condensation would not produce the white slik you saw. So check for a leak.
Easiest thing to do: first take off your valve cover and look down the intake flanges. See if you spot water there. Especially the front, where the water passages are.It could be the intake gasket or a porous intake manifold (did happen to me).
If you see nothing, do like pirate says, put pressure in the cooling system.
I would connect a hose with compressed air where the temperature sender is on top of the intake behind the expansion tank(maybe some type of adapter needed). Take the spark plugs off and listen.You will find the water leak within seconds. If it is a head gasket failure you will hear it through the spak plug holes.If it is in the intake you will see it looking down the flanges.
Good luck.

[Rick Parker]

As I understand it the engine is actually running OK? This is a visual observation that recently took place? As Toungue Pirate suggested pressurize the system with the valve covers off and watch for pressure drop over an extended period of time. If the Cylinder sealing ring for the headgasket is intact I doubt any leakage would be heard through the spark plug holes. You could also do a cylinder leakdown to verify this, however if there was a failure of the rubber beads on the head gasket itself that separate the oil and water passages, it would only show up under simulated operating pressure by forcing water into the oil.
The alternative to a gasket failure or component falure (cracks) would be that the engine has been operated for short distances and not gotten up to temprature, maybe no PCV. One function of PCV is to remove moisture from crankcase, as well as fumes coming from the hot oil. The vacuum also helps with ring seal.
Lastly is compromised gasket seal between head and manifold.

[Carnut427]

Originally Posted by Eljaro

Condensation would not produce the white slik you saw.

Condensation alone won't produce the white slik, but running the engine, allowing the condensation to mix with the oil, will.
By all means, check things out as suggested, but as Rick Parker said,

Originally Posted by Rick Parker

...The alternative to a gasket failure or component falure (cracks) would be that the engine has been operated for short distances and not gotten up to temprature...

Another tip...pull the drain plug and see if there's water in the pan...if the engine is cold and has been sitting long enough for any water to separate from the oil, the water, being heavier than oil, will settle to the bottom. If all you see is the white slik on the breather, dipstick, etc. and the oil itself is the correct color with no water in the bottom of the pan, there's a good chance it's just condensation.

If the engine checks out OK, you're simply not enjoying you Cobra enough. Go for a long enough trip (30 minutes or more) to burn off the condensation.

Dan

[Mike Bartlett]

Hi all,

I didn't get a chance today to check further with my engine problem. Thanks for all the advice. I am hoping next weekend I'll have a chance to try some of what you all suggested.

I'll give an update on what I find.

Thanks again,

Mike

[sideoiler10]

Last year I had a similar situation on my 427 sideoiler. Slight condensation on the oil breather on the valve cover, etc. Then, all of a sudden the left bank sidepipe began blowing white (steam). Of course you know what that meant...either a blown head gasket, cracked head, cracked block. I pulled each plug and shined a flashlight into the hole and walla! There was a nice puddle of antifreeze staring back at me from the top of the piston in the back cylinder. Lucky for me, it was only a blown(leaking) head gasket. The 427 is known to have a weak spot between the end cylinders and the waterjacket ports, because the large bore leaves so little space between the bore and the waterjacket port.

So I pulled the engine and decided to take advantage of the situation and replace the clutch and flywheel (resurfacing). Pulled both heads and had them checked for flatness. The oversized Manley valves and springs were fairly new so we just cleaned up everything a little and reassembled it with a set of Fel-Pro head gaskets.

Its really not that big of a job once you get started. You could do it without pulling the engine but I didn't want to take a chance on scratching up any paint or brightwork. Just make sure you retork everything in the proper order to the proper specs.

Bet you have the same or similar problem. If you keep driving it, you will probably also begin to blow steam. It starts out with just a little puff of white. Within a few miles it will start to puff pretty good. But you really don't want to drive it with antifreeze in the cylinder.

Good luck, Bob

[SCOBRAC]

What Eljaro said...

I went through this with the center oiler in the batmobile, it's pretty unlikely that any sort of condensation / humitidy would cause the change in oil texture. You sould change the oil and pull the valve covers, you will likely find there is a good deal of moisture collected in the valve cover roof.

It could be lots of things. In my case fortunately it was the water passages at the heads / intake manifold connection leaking. It turned into a little bigger project than expected when I found a huge mismatch between the standard Edelbrock F-427 and the extensively ported 427 Sideoiler heads. If it isn't obvious things get a little more involved, chasing cracks, replacing head gaskets, etc.

Good Luck,

[Igofastr]

Originally Posted by Eljaro

Condensation would not produce the white slik you saw.

Actually, it will.

Two of my own cars come to mind. First, my old 760turbo, whenever I pulled the dipstick, or took the oil cap off when I wasn't driving it much, especially in the winter, there would be a yellowish-white milkey coating on the surfaces. Sometimes quite a bit, and a little gross. Some might suggest that there was a leak somewhere, but I doubt it, as I never found any water in the oil, or had evidence of loss from cooling system. The car ran fine for years like that.

The second car, a '67 Porsche 912, would also show the same sludge during the winter, at times when I wasn't driving it too much. And, sometime even when I was. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a coolant leak on that car, as it never had any coolant to leak....oil/air cooled motor. :-)

Of course, you could also have a leak.

Ron R