Changed oil in my 98 Eclipse gs-t today due to bad gas smell in the crank case and dipstick. I assume this is from a bad injector or fpr. Changed injectors and fpr so I wanted to change the oil.
The car recently had a head gasket change after putting a junkyard engine in the car. I put new oil in the engine before I started it and determined the head gasket was bad at an oil port - read: the car did not overheat or warp the head. Put on a new gasket and checked head for warping. It was okay so I put it back together. Now. For the life of me, I can’t remember if I drained the oil before I changed the head gasket. I don’t think I did so it’s possible that coolant went into the oil causing it to look like the pictures below.
See the pic below. This is Rotella diesel oil that the DSM folks swear by. This oil only has 15 miles on it from neighborhood driving and driveway warmup and idle. Could there be a reason it’s brown? It’s clearer than the typical head gasket milkshake oil I’ve seen on the past. Coolant is still nice and clear/green. Thoughts? 
I don't know, but if I look at the title of this post, then look at the liquid in the pan, I'm calling my doctor!
You know. My New Years resolution is to proofread better at work and elsewhere. I have already failed.
Pour some into a clear container. If it's antifreeze, it will settle out over a day or so. It sure looks like an antifreeze milkshake. Any possibility of not cleaning it out completely on installation?
Scottah said:
You know. My New Years resolution is to proofread better at work and elsewhere. I have already failed.
I'm sorry to have pointed it out, but as the first one to reply, I felt it was my responsibility. After all, I have a reputation to uphold.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
Great idea. I’ll do that tonight.
It’s possible that even if I did drain the oil before I changed the head gasket, enough coolant went into the oil pan to mix with the good oil.
Car has solid compression across the board.
TGMF
Reader
1/1/19 6:28 p.m.
Buy some cheap oil, and cheapest filter you can find. run it for a few days and drain it. Comes out normal, go back to your expensive stuff and monitor. On the other hand,if it comes out milkshake, you've got a problem.
In reply to TGMF :
It doesn't get much cheaper than Rotella.
I'd change it and run it a couple of hundred miles and change it again.
Yup, definitely pissible. No doubt at all. TGMF's advice sounds quite reasonable to me, although after doing BHG jobs, I've never seen that happen.
24 hours later and it’s still very homogeneous. Nothing has separated and no water on the bottom. What you see at the top is the swash from moving the bottle.
I’ve read varying stories from the internet about what would cause this but many have said that if the oil is clear on the dipstick or on your finger, it likely isn’t coolant. This oil was still clear on the dipstick. Also - the rich condition which may have been raw gas leaking from an injector could have caused this discoloration. I’ll change the oil and see what happens. I just don’t drive the car that much.
I'm with the crew that says change the oil, run it, and see what it looks like. Any chance of coolant contamination in the drain pan (i.e. you just used it for the coolant drain when you fixed the head gasket)?
Fresh Pennzoil and puralator filter installed. We will see what happens next.
In reply to Scottah :
Now drive it like you stole it for a while and check again.
Send oil sample out for analysis, even after any gunk has disappeared.
I would do that anyway w/ a new to me engine or vehicle.
Did you confirm that the head gasket was indeed bad when you changed it? Failures are not common on those engines unless severely overheated, and even then, you usually end up pushing coolant out the overflow under boost before you get oil and coolant mixing.
The oil cooler on the other hand, is a frequent cause of oil/ coolant mix. The shaft the oil filter spins on can back out and cause the mix. So can over tightening the shaft and crushing the cooler.
fasted58 said:
Send oil sample out for analysis, even after any gunk has disappeared.
I would do that anyway w/ a new to me engine or vehicle.
This. There’s a reason we don’t analyze oil by looking at it. The only way you’ll get definitive answers is spring $15-20 to get it analyzed. I’m out of kits currently or is send you one. Sent my last 2 out yesterday.
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
The initial “head gasket failure” was oil puking out the front right side of the engine by the high pressure oil port. The problem ended up being finger tight head bolts. I had the head ready to remove by the time I discovered this so I went ahead and pulled the head.
In reply to bobzilla :
I poured the oil in a washed out Gatorade bottle or I still have some in the catch pan. Which is best to sample from?
Depends, how clean was the pan and how did you clean the gatorade bottle? I'd probably go with the bottle as long as it didn't have water in it at the time from cleaning. Water isn't necessarily bad on an oil analysis if it's from a cold engine. If it truly is coolant, we'll see the carrier salts way before it is a problem.
I just received my urinalysis back on the pissable oil. Good news is no coolant, but does this mean the engine is on its way out? Looks like a lot of bearing wear.
Meant to add. The copper is likely from spraying the head gasket with copper spray. Possible that other metals are from the recent work I’ve done on the engine?
There’s a lot there and I don’t nirmally analyze from competitors reports....... that sample could go many directions. Sampling procedures are key for wear and the way you did it is far from ideal. How much time was on that oil? Report says 100miles. If that’s true that is a lot wear in a really short time. If not and it’s closer to a more normal oil change than that’s not so bad but still a lot.
Their fuel dilution is an estimate based off of flash point and viscosity far from accurate. Additives are low for that fluid along with a drop in vis so I’d suspect there’s a lot more than the 2% they’re estimating.
i wouldn’t panic off of this one report.
