1972 318, coolant getting into oil

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demonmike70

demonmike70

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So, I just got my Demon out of storage. On the 2 mile ride home, it overheated. It put a gallon of coolant into the engine oil. It also had coolant in the air cleaner. I pulled the plugs, no coolant on them. It also ran good,no missing, or running rough. I pressure tested the cooling system. I thought I could hear the coolant draining into the oil pan. There is no coolant in the cylinders. Pull intake, no signs of gasket failure. I thought I once heard someone saying timing covers can go bad? Any one heard of this before?
 
You DID have 50/50 antifreeze in it for winter storage, right? If not, oh-oh.
 
Timing cover do Oxidize overtime. Most timing covers are aluminum and the metals in the water slowly oxidized. Also if it’s over tightened and the kids could give away, there’s more metal, but oxidation. This is probably a very good spot to look for that.
 
rumblefish360 said:
Timing cover do Oxidize overtime. Most timing covers are aluminum and the metals in the water slowly oxidized. Also if it’s over tightened and the kids could give away, there’s more metal, but oxidation. This is probably a very good spot to look for that.
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It has 176,000 miles on it. I'm the second owner and have all the maintenance records. I did notice a few drops of coolant by the cover late last year. I'm going to pull the cover off tomorrow. Thanks !
 
yes timing covers can go, this one caused an overheating problem and was about to go !!!

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Thank you gentlemen. I believe, when this car was in California, some was running it with water in the cooling system. It's has had all the freeze plugs replaced before I got the car. To put that much coolant in the oil in less that a 1/2 hour and it ran good,I can believe I have a head gasket problem. I couldn't even get the cooling system pressure tester to pump up,so it's going to large and obvious part failure.
 
I vote for timming cover. Happened to my dart 273 in the 80-90s.

Unfortunately oil sits on top of water so you probably ran the engine on coolant rather than oil as long as you were driving it that way. I would pull the engine and check everything.
 
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Dana67Dart said:
I vote for timming cover. Happened to my dart 273 in the 80-90s.

Unfortunately oil sits on top of water so you probably ran the engine on coolant rather than oil as long as you were driving it that way. I would pull the engine and check everything.
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I drove it less than 3 miles,never lost oil pressure. Let cool for about a hour and moved it into the car port,no noises, so I think I'll be ok.
 
You for sure had pressure but was it oil???

You will know at some point if you have bearing damage
 
My first thought was a head gasket. However, the timing chain covers do corrode. My ramcharger ig has actually pitted the block and cover and I have been lucky enough to have mine leak external. I usually have to replace that gasket yearly. Could be a possibility.
 
You certainly have to drain the oil, and put the first of what you drain into a quart glass jar and wait for a few days to see if any coolant settles out. And pull the valve covers; if you got coolant in the oil, it will be milky wherever it went.
 
nm9stheham said:
You certainly have to drain the oil, and put the first of what you drain into a quart glass jar and wait for a few days to see if any coolant settles out. And pull the valve covers; if you got coolant in the oil, it will be milky wherever it went.
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I all ready have the intake and timing cover off. I will be removing the valve covers next. I will be cleaning and flushing the engine. I will drain the oil, replace the filter, run it and change it again.
 
Wow that was rough. I take timing covers with "minor" pitting, and sandblast the **** out of the water passages to clean aluminum. Then I fill the cleaned out pitting with aluminum JB weld, and coat the water passages with a fluid resistant aircraft epoxy primer.
 
My used-to-be Olds Cutlass V6 suffered the much publicized GM intake manifold gasket failure. dumped the whole thing (coolant) into the pan one afternoon. I bought the cheapest wally world oil and filters I could find, ran it about 1/2 hour at idle and then changed it, ran it about an hour and changed it again. My former supervisor bought it and it's still doing fine couple years later.
 
Yup I've had (too many) timing covers fail like that. Mostly magnum engines but not all. Most recently was the 3.9 in my Dakota. That one had had the timing cover gasket replaced at 91k before I got the truck, it went again on me about 125k.and the cover was pitted bad enough that ti wouldn't have sealed with just a new gasket,or not for very long anyway.i wound up replacing the cover.and unlike the overpriced idiots that did the job for the po,
I replaced the timing chain set while I had it exposed.
IDK why but every time I see this problem it blows on the passenger side right behind the alternator, up high on the cover.
 
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