[s-cars] chocolate grease in coolant expansion tank

[Kevin Day]

On Tue, Aug 02, 2005 at 06:14:21PM -0000, brian hoeft wrote:
> okay guys, so, to my horror while routinely checking for anything 
> disturbingly obvious with my baby, i got cracked in the jaw.
> 
> why is my expansion tank black, oh f---!... take off the cap, swirl my 
> fingers around and pull out fingerfulls of a black geasy substance.


I have weird black crud in my expansion tank, too.

I think it is rubber from the fuel hose that was mistakenly used to
replace the short turbo coolant line under the intake manifold.  That
hose disintegrated within a year.

The black crud showed up a few months after the bad hose was put in.

The last oil analysis showed 0.0% antifreeze in the oil, so I am 
assuming my headgasket is fine.

The black crud in this case is hard and slimy, and has not mixed with
the coolant.  Nothing at all like the chocolate milk-like coolant I saw 
with a bad head gasket on an old (fortunately non-Audi) car.

I wish I knew how to get that crud out, so I could confirm that no more
is accumulating now that the bad hose has been replaced.

-Kevin