I'm looking for some net wisdom on my latest problem.
I've recently started to see what appears to be oil floating on top of the
coolant in the recovery tank. To add to little confusion, just before the
problem started to appear I decided to try Redline "Water Weter" in the
coolant. For those of you not familiar with this product, It comes as a
pink liquid or crystal substance and is suppose to improve heat transfer,
and allow the cooling system to work more efficently. Does anyone have any
experience using "Water Wetter"?
I think the oil-like scum may be some interaction between the coolant and
water wetter, on the other hand it could be a more serious problem. Since
it was time for some of the usual preventitive maintenance and an oil
change was in order the first thing I did was to drain the oil and let
it set for a few day. It was not milky and no coolant separated out, so
far so good, no coolant in the oil. Also took an oil sample to AAA to
have the 'Oilscan' analysis done, this is something I've wanted to try for
a while, and for $10 it seems like a good deal. Anyways all results were
normal. The oilscan checks for coolant, fuel, blowby, bearing & ring
materials, and about 15 other components in order to try and determine the
internal health of your engine. Since I'm thinking maybe the headgasket
next was a check of plugs and compression, things looking real good here
since the valve job two years ago. Compression readings 142,137,142,137,
and the plugs have never looked better which I attribute to doing the
mixture adjustment using a "Colortune' setup kit.
Next thing to do will be to drain, flush and refill the cooling system.
I usually wouldn't be so concerned, but I have a 600 mile roadtrip coming up
in a few weeks. The weekend of Aug. 15 & 16 is the Jensen National Weekend
at the Santa Maria Inn in Santa Maria CA. If any SOLers are this area and would
like to see a large collection of Jensen-Healeys and Interceptors please
feel free to stop by. The car show is scheduled for Saturday afternoon.
Anyways, if I do have oil getting into the coolant does anyone know of a good
procedure to isolate this type of problem? Am I in imminent danger of a
catastrophic failure or will it continue to put oil into the coolant at an
estimated rate of about 1 teaspoon per 100 miles?
Thanks in advance for any help
Tim Pettenati
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