My buddy has a 94 reg cab long bed 2x4. He's running a #4 plate, 370's, 35/3b twins at 50psi, and a full built DTT. Head is completely stock. The truck has 124,000 miles on it and they definately aren't easy. A couple of weeks ago he noticed his truck was running about 190* on the coolant(usually runs about 140-150). Looked in the radiator and overflow and they were empty. So he filled them up and went on his merry way. Yesterday he calls me and says to come over to his house. I go over and his whole radiator and overflow bottle are full of oil and I mean FULL. His truck was down maybe 1/2 a quart of oil and there's no coolant in the oil that we could see or smell. No leaks on the outside of the block. The water pump is circulating and flowing. There's no odd colored smoke, just nice and black. The truck runs perfectly fine, no knocking, pinging, rattling, nothing. No loss of power or mileage. I'm betting headgasket but I thought I'd ask yall. Thanks for the help yall.

P.S. Sorry if this is the wrong forum. Just figured that with all of the mods this might be more of a performance issue.

 

headgasket is my guess too

 

Are you sure it's oil, will it separate from the coolant? Maybe exhaust gas from a blown head gasket.

Randy

 

Not sure if it's oil or not but it's definately thick and black and looks and feels like oil. It literally looks like he poured used motor oil straight into the radiator.

 

If it's oil it should separate from the coolant if you let it sit. (water weights more then oil) I think coolant can get pretty nasty if it gets alot of exhaust mixed in.

 

It's possible that it's NOT oil. There are many coolant additives on the market that "precipitate" out of solution when they cool off. The dissolve again once the temps come up. I've had this happen with Redline water wetter, and RP Purple Ice. I bet the inside of the puke bottle looks nasty, but ONLY above the water line, right?

There's no reason for his truck to be "normally" running 140-150. 190 is closer to where it should be under "normal" conditions.

He probably does, in fact, have cooling problems and maybe a HG leak if he's losing oil. If he's losing oil AND water, then it should be showing up as smoke (you know the colors).

jh

 

No coolant additive. As far as I know he was still running the original dodge coolant.

Haven't checked the puke bottle but the overflow is full of this nasty black stuff where as two weeks ago is was full of neon green stuff.

He's owned the truck for the last 4+ years and he said it normally runs around 140-150 and this is the first or second time that he's ever seen it hit 190. Even in traffic it may touch 160.

He's not losing oil or coolant which is what has us thrown for a loop and the smoke is just as black as night.

 

Uh, this could also be the oil/water heat exchanger behind the oil filter housing. We pulled off a head on a '98 with 215k and found that it was fine. Then we removed the oil filter housing and found that it had been blown through and was letting oil in the coolant, but the Blackstone oil test didn't show any coolant in the oil.

brandonm

 

Same exact thing happened to me (warmer than usual temps and lots of oil in the overflow bottle, but otherwise running fine). I was hoping and praying that it was anything other than the head gasket, but in the end thats what it was. Another tell tale sign is gasket sealer looking material floating in the radiator or overflow bottle. This material comes off the head gasket around the coolant jackets and ends up in the coolant. It really sucks, but tell him to use this as an opportunity to do some mods (studs, or-rings, marine gasket, etc.). I ended up with a little over $2000 in mine and that was me doing the work myself.

MIke

BTW, don't be discouraged by everyone telling you that the head won't be any good when you take it off. The machine shop that did my work said they've never had a 12v Cummins head that couldn't be reused.

 

just got done tearing my motor down. thought i had a cracked block and had the same exact thing happen to me with the oil in coolant. mine ended up being a head gasket only but there are only 4 things that could cause OIL in your coolant.
#1 oil cooler gone bad. most likely

#2 head gasket

#3 cracked head

#4 cracked block.

those are the only way possible to get OIL in the coolant.

 

Thanks yall. He's gonna go ahead and take the head off and have it decked and do the MLS gasket and 12mm studs. I'll keep yall updated on what we find.

 

He finally took the truck to the shop and it turned out to be his oil cooler and had busted and was leaking into the radiator. Headgasket is perfectly fine. He's gonna stud it anyways. Thanks for the help yall.

 

inlline6power called it! im glad that was all it was.

 

No offense HOHN...you're normally right!

BUT, 12v's seem to be all over the place concerning water temps...and no updated thermostat has seemed to fix the "problem"
Running empty, both my 95 and the 98 run around 160* In traffic, the 98 will creep higher, but not to 190! The 95 will get up to 190-210 towing, but only if you're in it hard up a long hill (1100-1300* EGT's)

I wouldn't call what BB said "unnormal," because 12v's don't seem to have a "normal"

It also takes forever to get heat in the winter with these old pigs
Chris

 

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So true!
My 98 12v takes just under twice the distance my 98.5 24v did to reach operating temp? Seems the 12v dosent build/hold the heat that the 24v does? It sucks in the winter as I dont get any heat untill I'm almost to work