coolant into oil at the turbo?
 

Is it possible to push coolant into the oil system at the turbo?. I currently have a gt28 replica from e-motor. It is oil and water cooled. So I am wondering if coolant (from the coolant lines feeding the turbo) can push into the oil system of the turbo. I am currently loosing a little bit of oil at my oil pan bolt, yet my dipstick is slowly moving up and the coolant level is in the resovoir tank keeps going down. The head gasket is fine. The motor was rebuilt about 10 miles ago by a shop. I've also rebuilt this motor, only to have the rod bearings spin on me, and it did the same thing as described above. Any insights would be great.

I think its possible though highly unlikely. Just my .02

ya unfortunatly most of the things that are unlikely to happen, happens.

I'm not going to saw my disco potato in half to confirm this, and I don't have it in front of me ATM, but I don't think it's possible for them to mix in the turbo. I'm pretty sure they are kept in separate channels defined by the metal casting of the CHRA; it's not like there's a failure-prone gasket between them. If the CHRA developed a severe crack I could maybe see it, but I've never heard of that happening.

Considering you've got 10 miles on the motor, I think it's more likely that 1) coolant dropped because the system hadn't yet been fully burped and 2) oil level seems up because you checked it hot and/or you are reading it on non-level ground and/or you are being paranoid. Add coolant to top off the rad and keep watching for coolant in the oil (milkshaky or less-than-clear oil). The oil drip depending on severity may not be urgent, but since it was built by a shop I'd call them up and make them aware of the situation and see what they say.

^thanks for the input guys. Yes they are aware of the oil leak. But what boggles my mind is why the level on my dipstick keeps rising. Yes ten miles is just an estimate. Most of the times i have it running it is just sitting half way outside of my garage and just idling. I am almost certain there has to be some sort of crack in the CHRA. I mean not all turbos are perfect right?. This could be one that just happend to pass through their test, yet easily broke in due time. Just from working at a factory and an assembly line over the summer. Quality control goes down a lot when more products are getting put out in less time. But aside from the side notes. Is there a way to repair this if this is the main cause? Im going to change the oil and just bypass the coolant side of the turbo and just run oil cooled. I know these turbos are designed for the use of both. But i'm kinda skimming the bottom on why my oil slides off the dip stick like water. I mean the oil litteraly seems like thick water. Seems like coolant to me. But as far as topping it off. Its the resovoir has been completly drained twice. For some reason each time i fail to notice it draining. :vash: Would there even be a way to repair the turbo should there be a crack that is letting coolant seep into the oil? But i probally wont be trying to repair this. It seems like a pain in the ass. I will try and source out a new CHRA cartridge and replace it. In the mean while, the car will be sitting on jack stands while i tidy up some stuff underneath the car. Its definatly no fun working in a tiny garage when its only 10 degs outside. Thank god for forced air heaters;)

you got it right there.

Chances of it leaking at the CHRA from a crack are slim to none unless its at one of the fittings.

and like scott said, burp your entire coolent system. You can try the jackstand method to make sure all air bubbles come out if your ----


Also, how much did your shop charge you for the engine assembly, just labor

Disconnect the water lines and run oil only. If oil starts dripping/leaking out of the open ports then you will know for sure. I highly doubt its the turbo though man. As much as I wish it was that simple

I think it was around 350 for checking out the head (vaccumme test) hone cylinders polish crank and long block asembly minus pumps pulleys and manifolds

not unless you've cracked both your oil and coolant galleys inside your CHRA.

The other thing to remember is the oil system is generally 25-30psi min at idle hot... the coolant system is less than 20psi, so oil would more likely go into the coolant rather than the opposite.

Having had an engine that cracked the head between valves and dumped water into the oil, if you'd put two reservoirs of water into the oil you'd have this wonderful gray jelly looking stuff at this point.

As other have said, I'm going with "cooling system not bled properly/improper oil level checking" at this point.

Well so far. Its looking kinda dim ,by what people are saying, that my chra is cracked. Or atleast, not very likely. But to rule it out ive just simply bypassed the water system for now. Changed out the oil for the first time since i got the motor in it. Definatly had some coolant in it. Along with this some very very fine metalic flakes. It looks just like shimmer. Is this normal for a freshly rebuilt engine?. ^^the shop said that they vaccumm tested the head and everthing checked out. I'm going to give it a leak down test just to double check im not leaking any coolant elsewhere. I got the tank and radiator topped off and I will try the jack stand method and just bleed the coolant system if the leak down test passes.

Obviously the coolant in the oil is abnormal, but the shimmer is normal if you had the cylinders honed. A couple of quick oil changes after a rebuild will help get those tiny metal particles out of the motor.

thanks scottfw. Just waiting on a bigger tap and die set so i can put a new drain plug in that wont leak and also has a magnet on it :). Unfortunatly both autozone and oriley's dont have the pressure test kit for the radiator :(. So i guess ill just have to wait to post up the results on the coolant problem

Chances of occurrence ~0% if the turbo still spins or you haven’t shot a hole in the CHRA with a high powered gun or something.

Bob

can you guys hit me with some possibilites on why coolant is entering my oil system? Its not a head gasket as im not burning anything. The cylinder head has been vaccumm tested and checks out fine. The oil cooler has been cleaned and inspected. I don't really see the coolant re route being the problem. I will hopefully be able to find out to see where my coolant is pouring into tomrow.

I was working on a cavalier and was told to do a head gasket by the customer. I did it and sent the head out head came back fine. Car started up and ran for a bit before it started smoking. We checked the block and it was cracked. It didn't look like it but it was. I know that yours is not smoking but it could gave cracked between an oil and coolant gallie. Just a thought. Was the block flat?

Have a great day,
Jared

Ya the block is flat, although it did get resurfaced because on the first initial build there were some head gasket material that seemed to have burned and fused with the block's mating surface. But it has never been warped. Would magna fluxing the block be able to tell if oil and coolant gallies are cracked? or would that be primarily to check for cracks in the cylinders only?

so you disconnected water to the turbo and this is still happening?
The only other place that I can think of where water is close to oil BESIDES the block/head would be the oil cooler. Might wanna check that just to make sure its not cracked or messed up for whatever freak reason.
Unless you have some weird headgasket failure where the two are swapping places and yet not burning up.

Oil pressure is higher than water pressure right? So if anything the OIL is supposed to go into the water and not the other way around.

Otherwise I hate to say but it would have to be your block or head.

no i haven't tried it yet with the turbo disconnected im still working on putting a new drain plug back in. so tomorow once i do that i will the pressurize the coolant system and see if it holds pressure. Im hoping to god it does

So it sounds like the block was overheated before.Is that so? I am not shure but is there not coolant jackets alongside the cyls? If so maybe a wall has become porus at the lower portion of the cyl wall When it heats up and is pressureized it could leak into the oil pan.

Just a thought. Wish I could say I think its the turbo, but not likely.

Have a great day,
Jared

A couple of years ago I turbo'd my Honda V6 in a sandcar using a rebuilt T4 turbo I had previously used on a VW engine in the same car. Since the VW was air coooled I had not used the water cooling feature of the turbo. With the Honda engine I plumbed it for water cooling. A friend helped me put fluids in the engine and new radiator/cooling system for initial startup. He commented that it was taking more water than he expected to fill the system. A short time later water began to pour out of the valve cover vent tube at the top of one of the heads! The entire engine had filled with water. Turns out that the division between the oil drain side of the turbo and the water jacket was not intact (I don't know why or how) and water was draining directly into the engine through the turbo oil drain line. Since the water cooling wasn't absolutely necessary on an open frame car, I simply plugged the water fittings in the turbo and drained the engine to solve the immediate problem. Turbo continued to work fine without water cooling. I never really determined the exact nature of the internal leak in the turbo, but I know it can happen. Probably not likely with a new turbo.

Norm

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/atta...t_out_view.jpg

you can clearly see the oil (yellow) and water (blue) galleys here.

Ok I know this has been asked before (and sorry to threadjack but its kinda still on topic) but:

HOW dangerous or bad is it to run a water/oil plumbed turbo with just oil and cap off the water lines?

Since the motor rebuild I've been running my turbo (only on 8psi for now) on oil only. I make sure and keep it on a bit longer than usual to let it cool down a bit before I shut the car off and all that, but is it hurting anything that I don't have my water lines hooked up? I don't notice a difference and nothing broke yet, but......

not dangerous, not bad. Hell why even go as far as capping off the ports?

So what are the water lines in there for then? Just for EXTRA cooling? Kinda a luxury if you will?

to prevent choking oil after shut off and to put load on your cooling system during driving.

Braineack, by looking at this picture. I wonder if i could have some how fractured the oil galley in the turbo? I mean the banjo bolt seems to sit snug and flush, but it did seem awful long of a bolt. It may have been just barely long enough to put enough pressure on the galley and crack it on a final turn, while lookiing visably flush on the outside. Well, at least i hope this is the worst of my problems, but it probally wont be. Now that i think of it though, when i first got this block from a forum member. the first thing i noticed when i got it home was that by the crank on the front main seal between the harmonic balancer and the crank gear, there was a bunch of coolant corrosion. Are there any areas near the front of the motor where as coolant can go into the motor oil somehow. At that time i thought that the motor was just leaking a little bit of coolant. It was an odd place to see the coolant though, being that it was crusted all over the crank gear.

Well I just pressure tested the coolant. With the oil drain bolt out and no oil in it (let it drained over night), I noticed that there was watery oil comming out of the oil pan. About a drop every 3 seconds. Im preety sure that the coolant is pulling some residual oil from other parts of the pan. But the car sat overnight on jack stands to drain. The shop thinks that since it has barely been ran and its still somewhat new that coolant could be pushing into my motor because the head gasket has not completly sealed. But even if that were true, wouldn't it be comming out of the exhaust and be burning coolant? At this point im not so sure what to do. But it seems that it had nothing to do with the turbo. Should i bypass the oil cooler and pressurize the system again and see if it still drips out?

worth a shot if anything imo

Coolant level is still going down, and the oil level rose slightly and seems a little watery. Do you guys think if i use that UV coolant dye and drain the oil that the dye will still show up?. I dont want it running to the point where the oil starts turning brown. With my luck i'll either spin another bearing or hydrolock the motor by that time. Aside from an oil analysis (not sure where to get that done), can you guys suggest a way to check to see if coolant is in fact entering my oil system?

I would just do an oil change and visually inspect your oil. It will be immediately obvious if there is water / coolant in it. If you have some old oil lying around, just dump some water / coolant in it and mix it around, and compare it to what comes out of your car (to be 100% sure you know what to look for).

I'm running oil & water cooling right now, and my coolant gets hot almost right away, and I do have over heating issues on a hot day. I'll probably switch to only oil cooling and just install a turbo timer.

It sounds like you have narrowed down the variables. Hate tot tell you it but it seams to me that either your block or your head is cracked. In my experiance the headgasket will seat when you torque the head down and runnit till the first heat cycle is done. As far as coolant beeing caked on the front of the engine it could have been that the water pump had taken a shit and spilled out and the PO had overheated the engine.

There are three options that I can see.
1. Block is cracked.
2. Head is cracked.
3. Headgasket is damaged or on wrong.

Either way you will need to remove the block. Sorry for the bad news.

Have a great day,
Jared

Dustin, I did what you recommended last night actually. Still hard to decipher if it truely is coolant since the oil is still somewhat fresh. That is what i am thinking jared. It can probally be only one of thoes possibilities. I will take a sample of my oil to a place to have it analized and confirm 100% that coolant is present. In the meanwhile the shop I had build my motor gave me this product called irontite. Its an all weather seal that claims its an ultimate fix for head gasket leaks and coolant leaks. It claims as follows : Seals intake gasket leaks, cracks in cylinder heads and engine blocks, prevents anti-freeze seepage through gaskets and hoses, lubricates waterpump seals. The ower of the shop (the guy who built my motor) gave me a bottle and suggested I try this first before i decide to take the motor out. I told him should this not work will he take the motor back and go through it again? Luckliy he said yes. So first, an oil analysis next the irontite, then if all else fails back to the shop. Atleast its only a few blocks down from me.

From my experience, those coolant additives are horrible. A friend of mine put it into his Minivan and it stopped his coolant leak, but totally clogged his heater core.

Use the British crap Subaru made its customers use for headgasket leak warranty coverage circa 2000.

Hustler, Ill look into this. Dustin, that is the reason why im leery on using this. But it seems as if im on the ends of my strings, and the shop will be taking the motor back incase it doesn't get solved. I've also been doing some research on this and found this website (Dipstick Oil Analysis) on lesson three it talks about why oil levels would be rising. Which makes me wonder, at what afr would you have to be running to get blow-by (i believe that is the term) in which fuel goes into the oi?

You'd have to be INSANELY rich for there to be so much fuel in there that it starts destroying the oil on the walls and possibly seeping through the rings. We're talking AFR's in the 9-8-7's. So rich the sensor won't even go that low.

Honestly I wouild never use that stuf, unless I was in BFE and could not get my car towed home. If you are going to use it I would bypass the heater core and radiator. This stuf may just cost more problems later on. Personally I would take the car back to them and tell them to inspect it throughly and let you know what is wrong. They built it. That is why labor is so expensive. There is a warenty on the labor if there is no warenty then I would not go back.

Have a great day,
Jared