Oil in coolant... How serious?

Captain Crisp

Captain Crisp

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Hi, my 30 yr old Volvo MD 2010 has oil in the coolant... Otherwise running fine. How major an issue is this? The oil level itself is pretty stable... Needs a wee top up every so often, but nothing drastic...
Thanks,
Crisp
 
Presumably head gasket leakage unless you have an engine oil cooler. If the engine starts and runs well then my view is that it's not too serious in the short term if the oil level remains stable although if you start to see water in the oil then you will need to fix it. If it is an oil cooler failure then that might be easy to fix.

Richard
 
It isn't hard, but if you're having the ask the question, I reckon you should get someone to do it for you or, better, do some handholding while you do it. It'll be a replacement, and I'd be thinking I want to do it sooner rather than later as it'll get worse, not better, and sea water wandering around between the head and the block could cause corrosion that will make the job a lot more involved. I'd be happy changing a head gasket, but I'd consider sorting out pitting from corrosion to be well above my pay grade.
 
Suggest you drain and flush the freshwater system and refill with fresh coolant then monitor whether oil re-appears. Unlike many engines the MD range heads are not that easy to remove and replace.
 
I had this on my Md21b last year...turned out to be a combination of two issues...

There was a small amount of crossover in My heat exchanger... And also a leak in the heat exchanger in the in the gearbox...

I did a rebuild just in case..just put the engine back onto the engine bay this afternoon...

You'll save yourself a fortune if you can identify the base engine and source parts from non Volvo/marine sources...
 
pandos said:
I had this on my Md21b last year...turned out to be a combination of two issues...

There was a small amount of crossover in My heat exchanger... And also a leak in the heat exchanger in the in the gearbox...

I did a rebuild just in case..just put the engine back onto the engine bay this afternoon...

You'll save yourself a fortune if you can identify the base engine and source parts from non Volvo/marine sources...
Click to expand...
Simple it is a Perkins and parts available from Parts4Engines, although the heat exchanger is Volvo unique.
 
Also, check that the cylinder head bolts /nuts are done up to correct torque; it is a good practice to check periodically that the cylinder head bolts are tight as this can sometimes cause gasket leaks.
 
Graham376 said:
Before you start tearing the engine apart, are you sure it's oil? Not unusual for an engine without antifreeze/inhibitor to have a black film on the water surface in the header tank which looks like oil.
Click to expand...
It has antifreeze in and I'm pretty certain it's oil looking at what it left on my finger!
 
All the small Volvos (up to 75hp) since early 1990s have been based on Perkins/Shibaura - a joint venture UK/Japanese except the MD22 range which was a Perkins marinisation of a British Leyland automotive engine used in the Montego and LDV vans. Shibaura is a major manufacturer of small tractors and other agricultural machinery. The MD 20X0 series was also originally sold as a Perkins Perama with a different marinisation.
 
Would I need to get the engine out of the boat to do this? It's very cramped as it is....
Am I moving beyond the realm of DIY? Or is it not as hard as it looks...
Thanks!
 
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