Kevan Thanks for your input. My oil has never looked like that I am jsut worried about it blurpping up from the pan in to the manifold but time will tell. WHo knows maybe this will work after all
You're welcome. Sorry your thread got gang-banged. My fault. For your line from the pan to the manifold (*gulp*), install a check valve so that the...ahem...."fluid"....is only allowed to flow one way. That should fix any 'indigestion' problems.
Fine. That's a result of water/coolant mixing with oil. Hopefully it's just water. Condensation in the crankcase that evaporates when it gets hot again. Ohio isn't all that humid. I believe our friend, Legmaker, who lives in Florida said his catch can looks like oil should. Curiouser and curiouser... Top-mounted filter? This is sounding like you must be talking about a catch can on the INTAKE side. You've put a catch can on the intake side and instead of the hose running from the CAI you've put one of those little filters on top? The PCV system normally DRAWS air into the crankcase from there. Occassionally you get a pressure wave that causes a momentary reverse flow and oil in the tube can be "burped" out. A bit more prevalent with forced induction setups. Just guessing here... you keep the engine bay immaculate. You use water and other liquids while doing this. The filter gets wet. Maybe some liquid goes right through it. As the engine is running and drawing in air it also draws in moisture until the filter dries. That mixes with whatever burped oil you have in the catch can, gets hot, and you've got your jamoca shake. On the intake side, anything that gets burped up there is pretty much exactly what's in the pan. No vapors, no distilled out crap, just the same liquid that's in the pan. Hopefully it's not that. O c'mon.. oil vapors from the crankcase will eat heater hose. Normal. Can't remember if you're a Blackstone Labs customer. If that consists entirely from stuff out of your crankcase I think I'd be interested in an oil analysis.
Kevan nothing wrong with a good gang bang man. I already have a check value right before the in on the catch can where else would you put one?
Drained the catch can last night at about 2AM: LEGEND: - Cup is about 1.5" high. - Dark brown stuff is old, dried stuff stuck to the cup. - Light brown "floating logs" and water/liquid are fresh from the catch can. Still want to run that back to your oil pan?
Kevan, the point is that came out of your oil pan. My suggestion is to take an oil sample and send it to Blackstone labs for analysis. really man. http://www.blackstone-labs.com/free_test_kit.html
Actually, it came out of the valve covers. Sorry, but I'm not blowing $30 on tests when I can PM the head of lubes at Texaco for free.
Can you PM him a sample? I doubt there is anything wrong with your lube. I'm just thinking somethings getting into it that shouldn't be.
I can PM him the pic. No leaks or blow-outs, so I'm not sure what could get in there. What I have discussed with him is the possibility that my engine oil isn't getting hot enough to vaporize the moisture in the oiling system, and thus the large amount of water and large amounts of general gunk. I've been tracking my oil temp for a while now. We'll see what happens when we start to stay above freezing. Had a big bowl of Colon Blow yesterday.
That is interesting. How do we get rid of moisture that forms in the block due to condesation? With a 180 or lower tstat the oil will never get hot enough to vaporize the water? Your block would have to reach over 212 degres to vaporize the water? Even then when it hits the catch can it will condense, which is why there may still be some water in the catch can. I know the tstat is water temp but it definately has an effect on oil temp. Does anybody have an oil temp gauge? How hot do they see the oil? ..
I have one (OEM with the SRT-10s). It stays under the 190ºF mark. 8your- check not only the catch can contents, but also look at the bottom of the oil fill cap. If there's a 'mayonnaise-like substance' on the cap, that could also be an indication. The 'mayo' is what got pooped out of my CC.
water boils at 212. it evaporates at any temperature and faster the warmer it gets. There's other stuff you want to "flash" off your oil too. I think if you get it up over 190 for a while every now and again it should be fine. I've checked mine 4 times now over the last 18,000 miles and every time it's been 0.0% water in the oil. I'm running between 186 and 192 ECT. Oil pretty much tracks ECT and sometimes hotter. Your EVIC in normal mode will display oil temp.
The most recent column (on the left) was collected in my catch can. The 4 columns on the right were sampled from the pan just before oil changes. The catch can was emptied about every 1000 mile (20 ml) and stored in a baby bottle. Maybe that's where the silicon came from? maybe not.
I always snicker when I see/read about the "dreaded milkshake". Folks...ask someone who has wrenched long enough to know what they are talking about and you will miraculously discover(!) that..oh my...that what you see occurs EVERY night you put your little sweetheart to bed. You say "no way", that can't be right. It is :^O Humidity present in the ambient air deposits water droplets on the interior of the crankcase as your engine cools for a sweet overnight lullaby. Now depending on your local levels of humidity, this will dictate how much of that oh-so-awful engine-killing baby-stealing whitish (and devilish) deposit you might find in your catchcan. In fact, if you looked sometime later after driving at operating temperature you will observe nice and regular-looking oil that can be (oh my god) poured BACK into the engine (say it ain't so). OK, I'm tired of being facetious and will cut to the chase, that saged mechanic is going to bitch-slap you and tell you to stop being such a sissy and realize it normal. Every combustion engine on the planet experiences the same condensate during engine start-up and warm-up. Has no one here "ever" noticed the amount of water dripping outta their exhaust system during warm-up??? Can no one see the correlation between humidity, dew point and temperature, and how during the warm-up phase those very dastardly and ugly (heaven forbid I'm slipping again) water-mixed with oil substances are actually going to evaporate? Come ON folks....there is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with what your are seeing...it's SO normal by what I am reading here only your engine understands this and carries on full well knowing it will live a long a happy life... PLEASE before you all get on the bandwagon and call me a heretic GO and ask someone who actually knows about this stuff...protect your face and balls because it is likely you will be bitch-slapped one way of the other for worrying your pretty heads over something that is, well, normal and has zero affect on engine longevity...unless you elect never to change your engine oil (for the record one of the properties of engine oil is to address water condensate whether you drive your vehicle every day or once a year - hence the reason you need to change your oil every six months when a vehicle is parked but subject to significant temperature changes).
...and this is one reason to run your engine above some minimum operating temperature? Surely this flashes off faster at 185* than 170* right?
Sure, the higher the subject temperature the rate of evaporation increases. An engine, one that even employs a 170F T-stat, will see oil temperatures as high and higher. An engine that is operated for say 20-30min will evaporate and purge all condensate from the night before...even under the worst-case scenario (parked sub-zero to above zero with very high humidity at shutdown - frost would be very thick on the inner crankcase wall structure). An engine oil that never reaches operating temperatue (which implies the coolant has also not reached operating temperature), more to the point any engine that never reaches a timeline that would allow evacuation of that condensate might indeed show abnormal build-up. But we are talking running a vehicle once a day for only a few minutes for this event to have any chance of occuring. A more plausible scenario, if indeed there is an abnormal build-up is employing a brand of oil whose base materials are derived from (underground) oil deposits that are inherently waxy. I forgot to answer the minimum operating temperature aspect; although the rate of evaporation might be slightly higher on an engine that employs a 180 versus 170 T-stat, the end-result is the same, an adequate oil temperature increase that will evacuate whatever condensate is present...
