VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 1932 Oil in coolant

Helping a friend get his grandfathers 32 going again and he has found after many starts and runs in the frame coolant in the oil. He would run it until the motor reached about 190 degrees and then shut it down. Over a month or so of these starts and short runs the oil had been cleaned-no water until now.

We checked compression and there was 0 in one and two and 55-60 in the last four. Head bolts were torqued. We took the head off looking for a bad gasket or cracks but did not find any real obvious problem.

The inside of the cylinders looks great with no ridge. The tops of the pistons were clean suggesting an overhaul prior to being put into storage about 50 years ago. There are about 40,000 miles on the car. The valves in number 1 looked very good and should have been sealing well.

Dropped the head off for checking and a test for cracks.

He recently removed and replaced the water pump.

So after all those words the question we have is can oil get into the water in any other way besides the gasket, cracked head, or cracked block?

Thanks

Dave

just to clarify does he have oil in the water or water in the oil ?? or both

Good question, I did not see any oil in the water when we drained it but there could have been trace amounts.

Thanks

Dave

water in the oil could be condensation... if you do not run them long enough to get them to temp and burn off the condensation. saw this on my friends 31, he would go out there occasionally and fire it up and run it, but never drive it or run it long enough to get it all up to temps and burn off the condensation !:!)

with no compression sounds like a head gasket or warped head, issue i had, head was warped...had it decked wen i had it rebuilt. had to machine .008" to get it flat. also had the block decked. in fact had any and every flat mating surface machined flat :)

Good point but this one is run up to 160-190 before being shut down and there was a lot of water.

Thanks

Dave

Hi Dave

In my opinion you had a head gasket problem.
If you suddenly lose ALL compression in 2 adjacent cylinders, and suddenly have water in the oil, pretty much has to be the gasket.
I don't think you would lose that much through a crack.

The people you left the head with should check the flatness of the gasket surface as a matter of course.
But ask just to be sure.
You might want to check the block surface as well, but you will need a special straight edge for that (not just a carpenters level 🙂).

Ole, We did check the block with a steel straight edge and could not get a feeler gauge under it at any point.

I agree with you on the head gasket. The gasket was a Victor but had the Chevrolet number on it maybe they reused it years ago? The head bolts looked stretched.

thanks for the ideas.

Dave