Extracting emulsified oil from the engine

I imagine that you have 2 problems (unless you start dismantling the engine).

1) Thick emulsion in sump
Get oil to a reasonable temp and then pump out, suck out or drain via plug.
I've certainly pumped oil from a cold engine by putting a fan heater underneath to warm the sump as suggested earlier. So worth trying this and if it doesn't thin the oil enough then I can only think of dropping sump OR diluting the oil in sump. Adding IPA or other alcohol is a bit drastic but should thin the gunge if you can mix it in (bubble air through it).

Main problem with this approach is risk of fire or something going bang so electric pump a big no and vac. pump OK (but really only safe if you inject CO2 or Nitrogen into sump to replace air). Perhaps someone else will comment on this wrt LEL (lower explosive limit).

That's about all I can think of immediately and it sounds messy, costly & difficult unless heating alone will thin it.

2) Emulsion in oilways
Perhaps a mechanic will comment but I think that a thin flushing oil would be OK to clean the system once most of the gunk has been removed from the sump.

However, I can only hope that someone brighter has a cunning plan that will solve your problem.
 
I would just say get some cheap old oil, run engine change it, run engine repeat etc until you are happy its clean enough.
Basically unless you run it to warm it you wont get it all out.
I doubt you even need to warm it up, just get the cheapo oil to circulate, old bodge on cars with sticky hydraulic tappets is to put some derv in the sump to thin it out to clear blockages, then change the oil.



Lynall
 
This might sound stupid.

Option 1. I know this sound daft but depending on the engine and where you can get a vent hole on the side of the engine, you could just add some more fresh water to displace the emulsion.

Option 2 I am not sure about alcohol but diesel might be safer to dilute the emulsion and should not damage any of the oil seals.

Option 3 You could get some Bilgex and mix it with some very hot water and pour that it. Ideally you want to get the level above the crankshaft so you can spin the engine (with the fuel valve closed) and then have one of these Pera pump out units so you can pump out the gunk.

Had this problem on my old Volvo MD2B but it had side doors to get at the sump so cleaned it out ok.

Regards

JC
 
warm it best you can with a heater and get the most you can out of the sump. If it has a sump plug, remove it and leave the oil to drain overnight.

Then re-fill and run. Oil will still lubricate with a bit of water in it. When the oil is nice and hot, drain again and re-fill.
 
I agree with the suggestions to warm the sump by external means.

Then pump or suck out as much as possible.

If the engine has an accessible drain plug remove that and allow the remaining oil to drain ( be prepared to fit a new washer to the drain plug when refitting.

Refill with a cheap light engine oil. Run and then drain again.

Repeat the flush ( 2 or three times if necessary ) Before refilling with the correct oil and fitting a new filter.
 
I had this problem with a Bukh DV20 and solved it initially by running until warm on a 50/50 oil and diesel mix, draining and replacing oil filter then running on clean oil, draining and replacing filter again. Some short time later the high pressure fuel pump failed, and later again the rear engine oil seal failed, so I think the sea water did some damage while in the engine. All down to the water pump seals failing. I did of course have to replace the front and back bearings to the pump drive system.
 
Last time this happened to my generator I added a litre of paraffin then removed the drain plug and blue compressed air from my dive cylinder into the drain hole to mix up the paraffin and emulsified oil then drain the mixture out, a very messy job. I then refilled with just paraffin turning the engine over without starting it to flush the oil ways and drain. Then refill with cheap oil starting the engine to warm it up and drain several times finally filling with good quality oil.
 
richardsnowstar said:
I have now been told that the water pump seals are designed with 2 seals so that if the water or the oil ones go then the leak comes out between the seals so that cross contamimination is very difficult. So now I am stumped as to where the water is getting into the oil. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Usually water in the oil occurs after overheating, and either the head gasket no longer seals, or the head warps, causing water and oil to blow into each others galleries. In a disaster scenario, you can crack the block, with the same effect as the head problem, but much more difficult to fix. Suggest you try a compression test in each cylinder to see if one or more is down on compression. If yes, then most likely explaination is the head gasket problem. If yes, then you may as well skim the head when it is off to ensure no warpage.
 
richardsnowstar said:
I have now been told that the water pump seals are designed with 2 seals so that if the water or the oil ones go then the leak comes out between the seals so that cross contamimination is very difficult. So now I am stumped as to where the water is getting into the oil. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

The seals are back to back . One is fitted to stop oil leaking from the engine, the other to stop water leking from the pump. There is a weep hole between them so that if the water seal fails you should notice water leaking from the pump.


If the water leak becomes very bad it is possible for water to pass the oil seal into the engine.

If there was a very heavy water leak or if the weep hole was blocked :mad: that may be the cause of your trouble.
 
Could still be the seals>

richardsnowstar said:
I have now been told that the water pump seals are designed with 2 seals so that if the water or the oil ones go then the leak comes out between the seals so that cross contamimination is very difficult. So now I am stumped as to where the water is getting into the oil. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

As you say, there should be two seals with a gap between them to allow any water leakage to drain out. The seals on the seawater pump on my Volvo MD2B had been changed by the previous owner about 6 weeks before I bought the boat.

Sadly, the previous owner fitted the seals hard up against each other blocking the drain hole. I think he also may have nicked the water seal as my engine was flooded to the brim with emulsion about 4 weeks after I bought the boat so I was faced with the same problem you have.

Even if your seals have been fitted correctly, there is always the possibility that the drain hole has got blocked with gunge and that would cause water to be forced into the engine. The reason being that the seals are fitted back to back i.e. the outer one is fitted with with the lip seal facing the impeller and the inner one with the lip facing the engine. Result is that it does not take much water pressure for the inner seal to allow water into the engine as it is designed to hold pressure in one direction only..

However, there could be more serious issues with the block being corroded as one recent posting traced the water ingress to the bottom of one of his cylinder blocks.
 
Is the engine raw water cooled or indirect? If it's the latter, have you noticed any loss of cooling water? If it's just a case of removing the "mayonnaise", I've seen plenty of car engines with this trouble and it does surprisingly little damage in the short term. I agree with pre-warming as much as you reasonably can, draining as much as you can, and then filling with the cheapest nastiest oil of the correct grade that you can find. Just get it hot and change it a few times. Avocet sank at the hands of a previous owner (that got LOTS of water in the oil!) and he said he just drained and refilled 2 or 3 times with cheap oil, ran it up to temperature, and dumped it again. That was over 20 years ago now, and the engine didn't appear to have suffered at all! (OK Alternator and starter were dead though!)
 
Have you tried a Pela oil extractor ? - I suspect you could leave it sucking out for a long time without much effort if the draw tube was well submerged.
Agree with warming up with fan heater and suggest this should be at low power for a long time rather than a quick blast.
Probably a combination of the above and a lot of patience is needed
The points about cheap and nasty oil are interesting. In other threads there has been a lot of debate about not using over specified oil (e.g.semi synthetic) and getting the cheapest mineral oil from supermarkets seems to have been the concensus for the optimum oil for many boat engines.
best of luck and please keep us posted
Martin
 
richardsnowstar said:
Due to a leaking seal on the water pump I have got water in the engine oil and it has emulsified. I have tried pumping it out but as it is so thick it is almost impossible. Because of the state of the oil I am reluctant to start the engine to warm it up. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Someone near me did this several times before he discovered where the water was coming in. He used vacuum container which had no problem removing the emulsified oil. Just a few minutes. Something like a Pela
 
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