Club 80-90 Forums

Evening all..
After going to check the water on my 1.9td AAZ I noticed it was full of oil
I cant get it in to my garage until after the hols but have been told it may not be the headgasket but the oil cooler which is water cooled??
The bus runs perfect but for the past couple of months has run just over the halfway mark on the temperature guage. This went if I put the heater on but even if I didn't it wouldn't go to the 3/4 mark.
I have had experience of headgaskets on a lotus {I know I know!} and it worked out cheaper to buy a replacement engine! Does anyone know if this is a common problem with this unit and roughly how much should I be taking out of my Christmas savings to pay for it!!
Many Thanks
Tommy

oil cooler common and on the tdi`s. bypass it clean cooling system and observe it. if it stays clean then just swap the cooler. job done.

What Lee said ^^^

But may I add that the cooling system on our vans can take an absolute AGE to clear of oily residue (ask me how I know )

I thought mine still had a oil in water problem after fitting a new(ish) engine, but it turned out, even after 10 or more flushes (and bleeding each time of course ) that it was just gunk continuing to wash out of the Rad and the Heater matrix etc. EVENTUALLY it started to clear.

This of course could be a REAL pain for you in view of the time of year and the fact you need anti-freeze in at all times.

Flushing enough to clear it might take days of flushing twice a day like mine did - not sure what I would do if this happened to me at this cold time of year.

I don't even think that draining all out at night is a good enough precaution as they never completely drain

Sorry to bring complications into this for you, but better you know before you do as Lee says above and think it might not be fixed and blame a head or gasket when it ain't actually that.

I did consider flushing with an oil solvent (Washing powder or Washing up liquid) though the latter has lots of salt in it = not good for metals. esp Alloy, plus getting the suds out takes many many flushes too.

A tricky one - hopefully someone will come along with some tips on this.

p.s. - "RadFlush" would likely take many tins of it to get a result and still require a few flushes to rid the system of oil

I have done a head gasket change on diesel engine transporters.Regarding the oil cooler find out if its leaking as others have said.If the head is taken off it might be necessary to have it crack tested and a head skim by a reconditioner + a good qaulity head gasket&new bolt set.On ebay i found a seller that will do a pick up & return within three working days for the removed head cracked test & skimmed supplied with new valves and springs a metal head gasket & bolt set for £250 .A replacement engine might be a option but finding a good AAZ can be difficult

Thanks everyone,

I had a new rad fitted when the van was built back up so hopefully it will not be that.
Im hoping you're right Lee and its the cooler, as you say its meant to be pretty common a fault so fingers crossed. Its just the flushing out thats gonna be a pain...
The offer on E bay sounds cheap! Any ideas where I can find it??
Cheers

Here is the link to the reconditioner & its nothing to do with me. Received a good service . http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Seat-1-9cc-Diesel ... 1c0b558b50 If you carnt get transport to get the work done its ideal for collection & return from home or work.

Thanks very much. I like the 'its nothing to do with me' bit!
Will keep it saved just in case..
Cheers

Anyone got any tips on flushing the water system after an oil "intrusion" ?

I know from experience what time consuming pain it can be to flush often enough to get the water even fairly clean.

Is it absolutely vital that the oil is fully flushed out? Surely one flush is going to get the worst of it out, and even if there was some oil laying somewhere, would that not just go round and round with the coolant - or does it affect the anti-freeze??

surely if it's the headgasket the water would be in the oil also and then you'd find some creamy white oil on the top oil cap.

To clean, I used some kind of rad/engine flush, just disconnected the front-to-back pipes at the engine bay and banged a hosepipe up there, closing off the gaps with my hands so a good flow was coming out the other end, then swapped over pipes and repeated MANY times before it ran somewhere clear. It's probably not going to be completely right for a few more flushes but not bothered by that too much

Also, not sure if anyone does this but if you could have some kind of plastic mesh 'basket' that was small enough to fit and dangle into the reservoir cap hole, then perhaps some kind of oil-absorbent granules could be kept in there, as oil is lighter than water and will raise to the top, usually accumulating into the highest point (the reservoir) and then you just change out your basket when it's done it's job absorbing oil?

just a thought, prob pie in the sky as losing these granules to the system wouldn't help the life of your water pump or radiator by much

I found flushing the oil out of a VW diesel for these vehicles not to much of a problem.Remove the thermostat housing & let the coolent drop out then replace housing without the thermostat .Undo the hoses to the expansion tank & remove clean out the oil gunk.Do this a few times in conjunction with fresh water replacement but run the engine up to temp.After about three flushes i found there is very little oil left in the system.The expansion tank has a skim of residue this i remove using a small piece of sponge by shaking the tank with washing up liquid or soap powder this will attract it to sponge then remove it with a piece of wire.

I might be on the wrong track but you might be able to filter the oil out. I've seen funnels with a hydrophilic filter that are used for filtering water out of diesel. I can't see any reason why a similar thing wouldn't work for oil contamination in a cooling system?

Hi, I had the same problem a couple of months ago and it turned out to be the oil cooler(phew) changed it and it has been fine since(touchwood) as for the oil in the water i dipped a sponge and tissues in the filler cap hole and soaked it up using the logic that oil floats on the top of water, not very technical i know. Hope this helps Steve W.......ps got oil cooler from Brickwerks fast service..........

Such a shame, I scrapped a perfect full AAZ tdi golf mk 3 the other day, I advertised on here but it got taken off by the mods as it had no price, my fault I never read the rules

It had 145k but was well serviced with a perfect engine and box with new clutch 10k ago, just wasn't worth me having tyre kickers coming round off ebay when I could just scrap without the hassle!

insitu_mouldings wrote:Such a shame, I scrapped a perfect full AAZ

- I thought AAZ engines were worth quite a few quid ?