Hey all--

Installed my 160-degree thermostat this afternoon. (Thats another question in itself... any side effects to running a cooler thermostat? Is it harming anything?) 'Course, I had to let the small amount of coolant that was in the upper radiator hose and thermostat housing drain down to my garage floor, where I had a small garbage can lid placed to catch most of it. Got the new stat in, backed the car out of the garage, and I noticed that when I went to empty the lid, there was the rainbow of colors that you usually get in gassy/oil kinda stuff, in the coolant. Rut roe... isn't this a sign of a blown head gasket? I know that I do have a coolant leak, but I'm almost positive its in the water pump gasket (a new pump and gasket are going on this weekend) and not the head gasket... I took some pictures of the S.S Valdez in the sun, and you can kinda see the oil in there. Take a look and see if you can see what I see. (Confusing enough?) :)

Pictures are here:

http://mtnloghome.com/temp/coolant/

Thanks

Robin
bitjockey@hotmail.com
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been there, done that...look in the expansion tank. if there is a brown film in the tank its a head gasket. my 85 b230ft was draining the coolant in the tank about every 2 months. another simple test is start the car in the morning, dead cold, and let it idle for about 15 sec. take off the radiator cap and note if u get any pressure escaping. there should be absoutly none after 15 sec. if u have even a little pressure, uve got a blown headgasket...when i did mine at 170k miles the gasket lookes pretty knarly. and i personaly think 160deg. is too cold i have a 180 in mine and it warns up in about 5 min. and runs cool all the time. remember, coolant can only go 2 places, on the ground or in the motor(oil, out the tailpipe). oil can only go 3, on the ground, out the tailpipe, or in your coolant.

BTW i didnt have any signs of coolant in the oil, just oil on the coolant.

Robin
From those pictures it looks like there's a very small amount of oil in the coolant. Is it possible that it could've picked this up somewhere between when it came out of your block and when it hit that trash can lid? Or could it be possible that there was some cooking oil or something on the lid already?
How did the coolant look as it was running out? How does your expansion tank look?

I would look carefully at the coolant this weekend when you do the water pump but I think you'll find that everything is probably fine and you just picked up some oil off of your block as that coolant ran down.

Let us know what you find

Don Tibbetts
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92 745T 91K mi