oil cooler or worse?

97f350stroker · Feb 24, 2016

So about a month ago I was driving down the road and my truck began to run a little rough, pulled over and started checking things out. Noticed the coolant bottle was low so I popped the cap and sure enough there was oil in there. Take the cap off the rad and full of oil. Figured I'd check oil, pulled the dipstick and it's WAY over full and it's a grayish color and super thick to where it's almost chunky. Had it towed home and didn't get a chance to mess with it until yesterday. Drained the oil and some coolant came out first but not much and then oil started to drain with the consistency of a milkshake and still had a grayish tint to it. Decided to hold off and weigh my options before I pulled it apart. I was wondering if the oil cooler capping the bed could cause my engine oil to look like that, I know the oil would make its way into the coolant but wasn't sure that coolant would make it into the crankcase. My plans are to pull the cooler and check it out I already have new o rings there for it. Just wondering if I'm more likely to find that I popped a hg or or maybe have a cracked block somewhere. Prior to that day I had no issues with the truck it ran great no problems starting or any overheating. Just looking for opinions

79jasper · Feb 24, 2016

It could be.

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97f350stroker · Feb 24, 2016

Anyone with some insight on this. Prob gonna pull the cooler after work today

Patrick Feeley · Feb 24, 2016

The block and heads are pretty stout on these trucks. I would bet on the oil cooler and you really have nothing to lose by pulling it and inspecting. Hopefully, that's what it is. Cheers!

Bustedknuckles · Feb 24, 2016

Oil pressure is higher than coolant pressure in the cooler. Its not the oil cooler.

79jasper · Feb 24, 2016

Until you shut the engine off.

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97f350stroker · Feb 24, 2016

Well I just got the cooler off. The o rings don't seem bad to me. This was hanging out the end of the cooler though.

Bustedknuckles · Feb 24, 2016

79jasper said:
Until you shut the engine off.

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Totally missed that there was oil in the coolant. My bad.

dsberman94 · Feb 24, 2016

Wth is that?

79jasper · Feb 24, 2016

Someone's chitty rtv job.

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97f350stroker · Feb 24, 2016

Some sort of silicone it's not ford gray rtv so I'm trying figure out where the heck it came from

97f350stroker · Feb 24, 2016

Well tried like hell to find something wrong with that oil cooler but everything looks good to me. With the way that oil looked I was pretty doubtful it was the cooler.

TyCorr · Feb 24, 2016

Front cover not sealed correctly....oil and coolant are mixing...

97f350stroker · Feb 24, 2016

TyCorr said:
Front cover not sealed correctly....oil and coolant are mixing...

No matter the problem now the motor has to come out which doesn't bother me too bad. Front cover would be best case scenario actually I have a spare sitting here. I'm just about set to get my new shop up this summer so if it's a head gasket I might hold off fixing it or just drop in running stocker.

Bluke · Feb 24, 2016

Head gaskets are very unlikely. My vote goes cracked block. Went through a big thread on this over on psn. Golfer showed some pics. It's more common in 96 blocks.

OBS-Addiction97 · Feb 24, 2016

Bluke said:
Head gaskets are very unlikely. My vote goes cracked block. Went through a big thread on this over on psn. Golfer showed some pics. It's more common in 96 blocks.

Where's the weak point ?

79jasper · Feb 24, 2016

If you think it's the headgasket, do a compression and leak down test.

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Bustedknuckles · Feb 25, 2016

Those oil coolers rupture internally. Slap it together and flush it and see what happens

97f350stroker · Feb 25, 2016

Bluke said:
Head gaskets are very unlikely. My vote goes cracked block. Went through a big thread on this over on psn. Golfer showed some pics. It's more common in 96 blocks.

Normally I'd agree with you but the previous owner had the heads off and put new gaskets in so they're not good seasoned stockers. Still not too common for the hg to fail but who knows the quality of work performed.

79jasper said:
If you think it's the headgasket, do a compression and leak down test.

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I was thinking this also but then again I don't feel like getting that oil cooler up in there again and wasting 4 gallons of oil when I'd be pulling the motor anyway. Although it would be nice to get compression numbers in it regardless.

What I'm thinking is pull the motor, inspect the front cover and if that checks out good then just yank the heads.

97f350stroker · Feb 25, 2016

Bustedknuckles said:
Those oil coolers rupture internally. Slap it together and flush it and see what happens

If this is the case that wouldn't rule anything out for me though right? I have another motor here I could pull the cooler off of and use also to see if the one I took out was bad.