I was thinking of changing my coolant, and did a minor inspection. I found a couple of drops of oil in the overflow tank. ...
I looked in the radiator- no oil, I looked at the oil- no coolant- only little minute drops of oil in the overflow tank- maybe less than 1cc total- most of it sticking to the little rubber hose in the tank.
My car has never overheated, I am wondering if this is something to worry about.


Has anyone else seen this before?

 

That is a sign of a blown headgasket

 

Yup, classic sign. The oil always ends up in the overflow. It floats on the coolant, so it's the first to get pushed out into the expansion tank when the motor warms up. Then when the motor cools, and pulls the coolant back in, the oil is floating on the coolant in the tank, so it doesn't get pulled back in. I had over a quart of oil in my overflow at one point and not a drop in the radiator. There was a lot of chocolate milk stuck to the radiator cap eventually, but the coolant was clean.

 

drain your coolant and your oil. Put some "sealant" stuff in your oil and see what happens.

 

I would not put sealant stuff in the oil

Just replace the head gasket

 

Those sealants are a bad idea, espeically on turbo motors. Doing the HG is an excellent chance to install head studs as well. Factory gasket is about 35 bucks. Only a few hours labor, if Tbelt work doesn't scare you.

 

I was thinking about head gasket at first, but I've never overheated this car, or even come close.
also, I never have any noticable oil loss, and the oil is never "milky", nor is there any water in the exhaust (after warm-up of course). the amount of oil is really miniscule- a couple of 1mm blobs in the radiator, and about 1cc total in the overflow tank( I allready cleaned it out). is there some occurance of "blowby" in high boost applications?

 

Ive blown a few headgaskets and I can say this.... The oil has to be coming from someone, and on a boosted car, you dont want to mess around with anything that "might" fix it. Also, you dont have to overheat a car to blow a headgasket. Secondly, they make kits to see if there is any exhaust gas in the coolant. If there is.... then headgasket.

lastly, that sealant stuff is really bad for your car.... what it does is it expands all the seals so it was close off that leak, but it does it to EVERY seal it comes in contact with.

FWIW

 

maybe you should get arp studs and see if you can tighten things down..... maybe you wont need to do the headgasket if ur lucky.

 

Yes! It is a good idea to install these or double check the TQ. specs on the stockers, It can't hurt

 

For some the 1x1 method is what has caused the head gasket leak.

I vote for replacing the head gasket, I replaced mine 2 weekends ago after having similar issues and found evidence on the HG of a nasty coolant/oil mix on it.

 

replacing the head gasket is very expensive though...

 

Ah, then just ignore it and pretend there's not a problem. What's the worst that can happen?

 

35 dollars and a few hours labor out in the garage. Seemed cheap to me.

 

has nothing to do w/ expense- more w/ time. My car is going in tomorrow to replace the power window regulator- under warranty, but w/ my mods, the warranty is shot for motor.
The only reason I found it odd, was because there was very little oil in coolant, but any is enough to worry me. I also did every oil change on this car except the first, and the one last week ( was in for the window thing, might as well take advantage of the "free" service) only 36k miles, and no problems w/ motor, and I never "lost" any oil, even though some people lose a quart between changes.
Is there a possibility of oil/coolant transfer in the turbo itself? I know that the turbo has coolant lines running through it. Oh well, I guess i'll just change the coolant this weekend( or have mitsu do it), and then see how much oil seeps in later- in any case it's about time- of which i have very little of.
The cost doesn't bother me- and I have changed head gaskets before, but right now I am working 7 days a week, since someone is out on maternity leave- for 2 months- so it's more about time.
Not to mention that it's such an odd occurance to have little "spots' of oil in coolant. Usually i've seen definitive examples of blown head gaskets.

You think a compression test will do?, or should I just check the plugs.


btw- there is no coolant loss whatsoever- which is what usually happens w/ a blown headgasket. this is really starting to perplex me.