SkinnyBTN

Well I hope no one minds to much, but this actually applies to a 2nd gen truck I recently purchased. I know, I have forsaken the VE, BUT it really wasn't my idea . My fiance talked me into it to drive until I finish the crew cab. I have a house on some land I'm fixing up for us and it is taking all my time. No time for the crew project right now. Anyways, its a 96 2500, 4x4, auto, stock. Its very, very clean inside and out, appears to never have had a leak anywhere on the truck (externally), has a fresh tranny still under warranty, and even with the issues I'm having the truck drives great. Ok, so the issue is I'm getting water in the oil. It is not just dumping into it, but its definitely getting there. I am seeing sludge on the dipstick and sludge is coming out of the blow-by tube. It took 4 days of driving for the radiator to get low enough for me to even tell there was a problem. Could it be the oil cooler? I thought it would only allow oil into water unless it was real bad. I'm not seeing any oil in the water. What do you guys think? I posted in the 2nd gen section, but I'm not getting much back. Thanks, Ken.

sooty

your going to need to pressure test the cooling system, at 18 psi cold, with the oil cap removed, youll be able to hear water passing into the oil, when at operating temp, engine expands, closing tolerances, do it cold, post results, a lot of auto parts places "rent or loan" the tool

SkinnyBTN

Well, I'll give that a shot and post results. Thanks for the tip.

dodgenstein

Water in oil is usually a sign of a leaky oil cooler. Most head gaskets on these motors leak to the outside.

SkinnyBTN

I called around to every local auto parts store trying to find a coolant pressurization tool/kit, but couldn't find one. Everyone I talked to either had no idea what I was talking about and couldn't understand why I would need to pressurize the system or they knew what I was talking about, they just didn't sell it. I called a couple diesel shops around town and they all said that water in oil and no oil in water sounded like a head issue. Their opinion was that when the oil cooler goes you get oil in the water and sometimes a mixture of oil in water and water in oil, but they had never seen water in oil only from a bad oil cooler. Not trying to say anyone is right or wrong, its just what I was told. One of the shops I talked to, Diesel Care &Performance, gave me a very reasonable price to repair it as long as it is just the head gasket. So I decided I'm gonna drop it off Mon. morning and let them have a look. It really eats me up to pay someone to do a job I know I can accomplish, but I reckon when ya aint got the time, ya just aint got the time. Thanks for the comments and I'll post how it comes out. Ken.

jasonfriedlin

Those testers should be pretty popular...my auto shop in high school had one. You can test leak down on coolant systems or radiator caps with them as I remember. Cant believe you couldnt find one

SkinnyBTN

Well, I wanted to post and let yall know if you were right or not with your "guestimation" of what the problem was. I took the truck to Diesel Care & Performance and a mechanic that I hadn't talked to was the one that looked it over and drove it. He said, as many of you had, that it didn't seem to be a headgasket since it ran so well and didn't smoke. He felt it was the oil cooler and quoted me $572 for the part and $80/hr. shop labor. I felt that was WAY to high and offered to pay for his time, but would take the truck with me. He said not to worry about the $. So, I called dodge for a quote on the oil cooler and they said $572 also . I called Cummins Midsouth and they quoted me $267, that sounded more reasonable. I went ahead and swapped it out myself and so far so good. So I wanted those of you that guessed it to know you were right. Thanks again for the great info and tips. Ken.