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.

 

Time will tell !!

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

Or perhaps I got lucky and caught it in time.

 

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....

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