Help needed - oil became grey tacky, water mixed?

Water in the oil

Lou,

yes, it is water in the oil. -- I doubt it is the head gasket unless you got the engine hot or it is running ruff, or pushing water out the over flow as the compression pressurizes the cooling system or such, etc. It could be the water pump, but more common is the oil cooler. I have seen it a dozen times.

1. - get the oil cooler completely out of the engine system - oil & coolant.

2, - Bypass the cooler with a hose.

3. - Bypass the oil fittings with a hose with proper fittings - any "HOZE MAN" shop can make one for you cheap.

4. - Change the oil & filter.

5. - run for 20 minutes to warm up the engine & then change the oil & filter again. Run again. Recheck the oil condition & presence of water in the oil

6. - Pressurize the cooling system,

7. - Check sump for water in the oil again.

8. - Replace the bad oil cooler as they fail all the time.

Good luck.

Alfa Mike

Lou- How is you sea water pump driven? Belt or gear drive?

It could be the oil cooler, but usually if oil cooler leaks, the higher pressure oil leaks to the water side, then makes it out the exhaust to form a slick. It is possible the leak is very tiny and might close up under oil pressure.

Gear driven water pumps can certainly do this. Belt drive, no.

Both pump, sea water and coolant are belt driven.
On pics below rhe black is the sea water pump, res pulley coolant pump





L

First of all thank you all for your support.

Here is the plan:
1 remove bad oil, change filter and refill with lighter oil. I am using straight 30w, what would be lighter oil to flush, 5w30?

2. Disconnect/bypass the oil cooler.

3. After refill rev the engine by starting with the shutoff solenoid on so engine does not start and oil flushes.

4. Change oil again with usual 30w oil, start the beast for 10min. Check any water leaking out of oil cooler.

5. Change oil again. Check for coolant level.

Now if it reveals that unfortunately it is not the oil cooler, what would be my option? Does it worth it to try a coolant leak sealant?
Better to direct to head gasket rebuild?

For information where I so not think it is a winter issue is that sea water is not circulating in the engine bloc, only in oil coolers, exhaust manifold and heat exchanger. If issue was coming from hard winter the issue would certainly be in the oil cooler what would be nice.

Some dirty job ahead for today

L

Greetings,
Mr. L_t. At least the weather is nicer than last week (PLUS chaude). #3 above: I don't know if just turning the engine over with the starter motor would circulate the oil enough to get into all the small passages PLUS, for the amount you will have to turn it over, it would be VERY hard on your starter motor and it may burn it out. (I defer to wiser minds than I to tell you IF your plan is the best one) Let's work with the problem we already have without adding to the list.


"...what would be my option?" Sit in the shade with a nice cold white wine and wait for the TF analysis. Relax. Life is good. Kiss your wife. Look at all the birds flying and the fish jumping...



DO NOT!!! NON, NON, NON worry about the head gasket just yet SVP. Leave it alone until you're ABSOLUTELY sure that is the problem.

Fortunately I have enough rose wine to drink my pain

L

I would not grind on the starter to build oil pressure. Just change the oil and start it up.

Do you have an oil fill cap on the rocker cover? If so, open it up and look inside and see if there is milky gunk on valve gear (rockers, springs, etc).

Any chance the vessel was tilted stern up during fall winter layup? This could allow water to flow into cylinders and drain into crankcase. It happens. Or excessive cranking with raw water valve open. Does this engine have an aftercooler?

As mentioned by others, be prepared for at least 3 oil changes. The most I’ve done is 5 as water in oil issues chased down and resolved.

Indeed when it was on the ground I noticed bow was a bit lower then stern. Not sure it was enough for water to flow back in engine, maybe if exhaust manifold was full. Sure it was not excessive cranking as I never cranked it more than half a second for the engine to start right away.

No aftercooler very simple engine.

About temp engine I dis a check during last run to validate that gauge was fine. Gauge was showing around 67C. I got reading of coolant using heat gun, on hoses going in water heater, out of coolant tank, on the coolant tank itself etc and reading was compatible with what the gauge was saying, between 64 and 68 .


L

The grey color puzzles me. Water and coolant in oil is mustard color.

You can use the cheapest oil for the flushings since you wil olu be running at idle for a few minutes.

Oil is out, was hell to pump this sludge cold.
One question, should I put an oil filter during rinse with new oil or it does not make any difference?
Removed old oil filter and was full of this grey old oil.

Ski, what is the rocker cover? The valve cover? No oil fill on it just 3 bolt to remove it.

L

Here is a pic of the valve cover



And oil filter and housing

Just be sure to change the oil filter each time you change the oil. Any contaminated oil is still in the filter. Once you find the source of the water, drain again, change the filter and flush engine. Either use 1 qt. of diesel or "sea foam" the rest oil. Run the engine for say 20 min. Then repeat, drain, change filter, re-fill with oil, run engine and check the dip stick. It's important to run the engine for a while, that way any small amount of water will burn off. You MUST find the source of the problem first.

Just drained the oil cooler
Oil has a strange color



L

I have just dealt with a similar situation in a 17.5 kW diesel generator. Loss of coolant and oil turned greenish gray. Replaced head gasket and flushed oil three times. Stopped losing coolant but oil not clear. Replaced gear driven seawater pump and flushed a few more times. This fixed the problem but corrosion caused injection rack to be sticky so had to rebuild injection pump. 60 hours of run time since and so far so good.

A few key lessons that I hope help. Put new oil filter with every flush. The foamy oil in compartments and lifters etc did not come out with oil changes alone. Did one flush with half gallon of diesel fuel and rest oil ran 15 minutes idle then flush again. Then had to do injection pump and still saw foamy oil in crevasses. So did another flush with sea foam and ran 15 minutes to fully warmed. Immediately do another flush and run under load 1 hour then flush again.

You should look under valve cover to see if all foamed up after oil change. foam was like mayonnaise and would not go away without using diesel or sea foam. I constantly monitored oil pressure and did a compression test to make sure cylinders and valve seats were not damaged. I did do a valve job and had head pressure tested while off. So far gen is running well since. Hope this helps

If you use diesel in your crankcase, be prepared for a runaway if the engine is older...something to stop the airflow.

I won’t be able to find what I need to bypass the oil cooler today. Do you see any consequence if I keep this as is for today and do the oil flush next weekend after having got the fitting and hose I need?

L

I would do oil change ASAP. The glycol is known to damage bearings. Change oil and filter and run it a few minutes to flush all high pressure passages and most importantly flush the main and rod bearings. I would not wait. Also, I would personally never use an internal engine stop leak. An internal leak must be fixed correctly. Way too much potential for expensive problem to arise.

Oil pressure is much higher than raw water pressure, should be an oil slick , you'd think so.

Disconnecting the raw water connections to the cooler and run at idle seems worthwhile as a test. 40 psi should even with a crack or pin hole produce some oil dripping out eventually.

How does water go into the engine from an oil cooler seeing the pressure difference is so high? And then turning off motor, all pressures drop to zero fast.

Other idea is something cracked in the motor, in cars this would be a cracked head letting oil into the coolant, coolant could get into the motor as it is under pressure for some time after the motor is turned off by way of leaking into the cylinder, diesel cant tolerate much of that without catastrophic destruction. That is how one of my GM diesel cars engine grenaded, broken head bolts, head gasket leaked, it was consuming coolant, and on the highway, the crankshaft snapped and piston rods broke, pistons broke.

I read the GM 350 diesel not having a good fuel water separator, water in fuel caused big engine problem like that.

There could have been an oil,slick that he didn't notice. When engine is shutdown oil pressure goes to zero pretty much immediately but cooling system stays pressurized for as much as hours or at least till the engine cools. Even with a very small leak, water could be injected into the oil side until enough leaves the cooling system to yield zero pressure.

kchace said:

There could have been an oil,slick that he didn't notice. When engine is shutdown oil pressure goes to zero pretty much immediately but cooling system stays pressurized for as much as hours or at least till the engine cools. Even with a very small leak, water could be injected into the oil side until enough leaves the cooling system to yield zero pressure.

Click to expand...

No, the raw water goes to zero almost immediately, unless your oil cooler is cooled on the FWC side of things, which I have no experience with. Mine and others I have seen the raw water side coming from the raw water pump is what runs through the oil coolers.. Which is why the mention of an oil slick, it is cooled with raw water, so that raw water exits the boat, and you see the oil slick.

Lou, just do a regular oil change for now. Run engine at 1200 for a couple minutes and deal with the rest later. At some point take the three bolts off and remove rocker cover, but if you do not have enough time, understood.

That milky oil has likely been in there a while and another week should not be an issue. The oil is way cleaner now after this change.

Ski in NC said:

Lou, just do a regular oil change for now. Run engine at 1200 for a couple minutes and deal with the rest later. At some point take the three bolts off and remove rocker cover, but if you do not have enough time, understood.

That milky oil has likely been in there a while and another week should not be an issue. The oil is way cleaner now after this change.

Click to expand...

Thank you Ski.
Tomorrow morning I will go to my nearby hydraulic hose to ask them to provide me with a hose to allow me to bypass the oil cooler. I measure fitting and looks like a 3/4 JIC/flare. I remove one hose and got it back home so the shop can give e the correct one right away without guessing. I will go back to the boat in the afternoon and put that hose in and refill oil and run the engine at the dock. Then redo oil change etc.

After second oil change I will remove the rocker cover and check. Is there a gasket to seal this cover? If yes does it need to be change when putting cover back on? Don't thin so but checking.

Stay tuned for more news tomorrow.

L

Post 53, perfect way to get the correct hose/fittings. 3/4 SAE looks like JIC but they will not work

Greetings,
Mr.L_t. Mr. Ski will correct me if I'm wrong but I think you only have to bypass the WATER side of the cooler. IF it is the cooler and it's leaking water into the oil, if there's no water in it (bypassed) you run no risk of further contamination plus you'll save the $$ for the oil bypass hose...unless you want such a hose. Just sayin'

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr.L_t. Mr. Ski will correct me if I'm wrong but I think you only have to bypass the WATER side of the cooler. IF it is the cooler and it's leaking water into the oil, if there's no water in it (bypassed) you run no risk of further contamination plus you'll save the $$ for the oil bypass hose...unless you want such a hose. Just sayin'

Click to expand...

You are right my dear friend and as always you show me that the ree hide the forest in my mind . I could also totally remove that cooler from the equation and see. I am thinking also to take the opportunity to change the oil hoses while I have the hands in the dirt.
Something to note, when I removed the dirty oil I used a 10L can with manual pump. Usually when doing my oil change I am able to pump out around 5 to 6 liter from the pan and around 1L from the oil filter housing. Today with what I removed from pan and filter the can is almost full and I would say there is 8 to 9 L in it.
I think ( but may be totally wrong) that if coolant level dropped by 1 or 2 liter I would have noticed it immediately.

L

you dont carry them as spares?


You should.

what_barnacles said:

you dont carry them as spares?


You should.

Click to expand...

Carry what?

L

Just got my bypass hose made, this has allowed me to find an hydraulic shop 5 min from home, at least there is something positive in the story!



Will be back to the boat in few hours to finish the oil flush.

L

Bypass is in place, oil filter changed and new oil is in, time to start the beast and cross fingers...



L