Water in engine oil - fresh (bad) or salt (still bad but less so)

[DickB]

So apologies if you saw something similar on scuttlebutt, but I am still not sure what to do! In a nutshell, engine takes 2 gals of oil, but I just removed 3 gals of emulsified oil! Not good.

If the primary circuit failed (fresh after) this could mean head gasket blown or cracked block! Very bad news!

If it is sea water then the leak is almost certainly the oil cooler, cooled from raw water! It is a lumpy great Perkins engine which should be good for 10,000 hours but only has 2600 hours. I.e. Not knackered!

So I tasted the emulsified oil but it only tasted of engine oil - disgusting!

Any ideas how to test the white goo?

Cheers

 

[Big John]

Used diesel engine oil is heavy,black and horrible and gets contaminated with all sorts of things so I am not sure if you take your contaminated oil with "water" and let it "rest" whether or not the water and the oil would separate?

If it did you could syphon off the water and check its SG against fresh water. Just thinking out side the box. Hope it helps.

 

[lw395]

Why not just pressure test the oil coiler?

 

[DickB]

The emulsified oil is like emulsion paint. It doesn't separate again through gravity! However I will follow the suggestion to pressure test the oil cooler. Thanks for your help everyone. I'll report back when I know what is going on!

 

[NorthUp]

Have you added a gallon of fresh water to the header tank recently?

 

[talltim]

With a gallon of coolant lost into the sump I would have expected so previous symptoms

I would be thinking it is more than likely is raw water from corroded exhaust manifold or riser, or oil cooler. Depending on the raw water pump set up water could be entering via shaft seal into engine

 

[theoldsalt]

Have you added a gallon of fresh water to the header tank recently?

I agree. It should be obvious if you have lost a gallon of fresh water. But Dick, shouldn't that be coolant - 50/50 water and antifreeze ? If so you may detect the antifreeze in the oil.

 

[philwebb]

If you could figure out a way to separate a small amount of the water you could evaporate it or boil it down and then you would see the salt (or not).
Perhaps you could filter the emulsion? Could be you could shake up some of the emulsion with a solvent(petrol?) to separate water and oil.

 

[SAMYL]

Try measuring the oil with the two leads from a digital meter to see if you get a current flowing through it. Check against fresh and salt water to see which matches.
I don't really know if it will work but worth a try.

 

[Colvic Watson]

Just an encouragement for the future, we changed our oil cooler last summer and it was a cheap and simple job; agricultural equipment and corresponding prices.

 

[DickB]

Thanks everyone for the help. I will definitely test the electrical resistance, and I am also going to test the oil cooler bundle. I don't recall adding large amounts of primary water but I gave not added much antifreeze either, although I don't think the block froze. Certainly the head looks fine. Also the primary water jacket does not gave oil in it.

I will keep you posted on progress.

Many thanks again,

Dick

 

[vyv_cox]

The classic test for chlorides in water is to add a few drops of silver nitrate, which goes cloudy in the presence of halides. It can be bought for about £10 from Amazon, amongst others. Not quite sure how it could be done with an emulsion but I assume a simple centrifuge (e.g. swing a bottle round on a rope) would separate the water.

 

[cryan]

Emulsions will settle out but can take a ling time. Unless your topping up the fresh water tank then I think it must be Sea Water. I personally always suspect a cooler before something more drastic than a liner or cylinder head. Whilst a cooler fault is preferable to a cylinder head fault, fresh water is certainly preferable to salt water when it comes to contamination.
Coolers are relatively cheap to fix but once you have done it I would budget for a couple of charges of oil to flush out as much contaminants as possible from the sump. Sea Water is notoriously hard to remove from a sump without a full strip down and manual clean though which is why modern thinking is to fresh water cool oil.

 

[pelissima]

Perhaps a ph tape meter might be give an indication ?

 

[DickB]

Emulsions will settle out but can take a ling time. Unless your topping up the fresh water tank then I think it must be Sea Water. I personally always suspect a cooler before something more drastic than a liner or cylinder head. Whilst a cooler fault is preferable to a cylinder head fault, fresh water is certainly preferable to salt water when it comes to contamination.
Coolers are relatively cheap to fix but once you have done it I would budget for a couple of charges of oil to flush out as much contaminants as possible from the sump. Sea Water is notoriously hard to remove from a sump without a full strip down and manual clean though which is why modern thinking is to fresh water cool oil.

I certainly will. Sounds like good sense. Thanks for that.

 

[UncleAlbert]

For what its worth had this in a big way two years ago. 16 litres of emulsified liquid in a sump supposedly which should have 6 litres (of oil) in it.
Reason, hole in liner which sucked raw water cooling with every cycle of the piston. Luckily found leak by filling block waterways with coloured water and found tiniest pin prick hole as hole.
Engine was MD11C.

Coolant side of liner picture here
Good luck

 

[DickB]

For what its worth had this in a big way two years ago. 16 litres of emulsified liquid in a sump supposedly which should have 6 litres (of oil) in it.
Reason, hole in liner which sucked raw water cooling with every cycle of the piston. Luckily found leak by filling block waterways with coloured water and found tiniest pin prick hole as hole.
Engine was MD11C.

Coolant side of liner picture hereView attachment 40274
Good luck

Ye gods I hope I don't have that! How easy was it to remove the liner?

Cheers

 

[superheat6k]

For what its worth had this in a big way two years ago. 16 litres of emulsified liquid in a sump supposedly which should have 6 litres (of oil) in it.
Reason, hole in liner which sucked raw water cooling with every cycle of the piston. Luckily found leak by filling block waterways with coloured water and found tiniest pin prick hole as hole.
Engine was MD11C.

Coolant side of liner picture hereView attachment 40274
Good luck

The hole in the liner looks like cavitation pitting, can be avoided by using antifreeze with the correct additive package, not just neat ethylene glycol, although this wont help a raw water cooled engine. Fully described here ...

http://www.fleetguard.com/pdfs/product_lit/asia_pacific_brochures/3300963A.pdf

 

[UncleAlbert]

The vp is made up of sections per pot. So once the head is off, the liner and block slides up leaving the piston and crank. Take block to bench and the liner is a gentle press fit out . The seal/o ring lines can be seen and the lower half. The MD11C is raw water cooled and so the corrosiveness could have been exacerbated by the slightly clogged waterways in the block which would generate a 'hot spot'. the water ways are seen here after they were cleaned out

 

[VicS]

The hole in the liner looks like cavitation pitting, can be avoided by using antifreeze with the correct additive package, not just neat ethylene glycol, although this wont help a raw water cooled engine. Fully described here ...

http://www.fleetguard.com/pdfs/product_lit/asia_pacific_brochures/3300963A.pdf

The vp is made up of sections per pot. So once the head is off, the liner and block slides up leaving the piston and crank. Take block to bench and the liner is a gentle press fit out . The seal/o ring lines can be seen and the lower half. The MD11C is raw water cooled and so the corrosiveness could have been exacerbated by the slightly clogged waterways in the block which would generate a 'hot spot'. the water ways are seen here after they were cleaned out

ITYWF that its a well known problem with the MD11c. The hole lines up with the brass drain cock and is the result of galvanic corrosion