oil film on coolant

[Brett Dikeman]

At 8:18 AM -0500 12/15/02, Dan Wing wrote:

>It has been a couple of years since the coolant was changed.

I let my coolant change go too long, and when I finally did it this
summer, I had -all- manner of crap. Lime scale, little bits of rust,
you name it.  The coolant came out dark brown.  Yikes.

However, I still have a lot of deposits from the "phosphate free"
coolant(the green stuff.  I'll never put anything but pentosin and
distilled water in the car again.)  When I had to take out the aux
radiator because it was damaged, I discovered to my chagrin lots of
nice white-yellowy deposits inside the aux radiator end cap once it
had completely dried.  Have to figure out how to remove that from the
rest of the system.

>Since it is so much work to replace the turbo line, I want to check
>with you guys to be sure this small amount of black oily film does
>not represent any major problem, in the turbo or elsewhere. Has
>anyone seen this in other cars?

I don't think oil and coolant can mix in the turbo.

I'd guess you have the teeniest insignificant head gasket leak where
some oil is seeping in, and you're seeing it because the coolant
hasn't been changed in so long.

When you change the line, flush the system well, and use one of the
chemical flushes to remove any oil that might have stuck
somewhere...then flush that stuff out completely.  Fill with the blue
stuff(Blau and SJM both carry it, as do dealers but it'll be much
pricier) and distilled water.

Brett
--
----
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/
http://www.apple.com/switch/