Rusty coolant or oil mixing

[Rahul Jones]

Hey guys,

just today I did a coolant flushing and while removing the hoses I found some orange stuff inside. But I am not sure if its rust or the engine oil is mixing with the coolant. It is a hard stuff. Also, recently when the coolant level went down I topped off with desalinated tap water. I will post the pics soon.

Thanks,

Topic

[Edward]

Sounds like rust, oil floats on water.

Your coolant went down is the interesting bit!

How long did it take to go down?

How much by?

Have you checked for leaks?

[Hayden]

Just rust. I just flushed my radiator and it was the same as yours.

[Gary]

It’s probably just rust. However, I would pressure test the cooling system if I were you.

[Rahul Jones]

[quote=”KerbDragonRider” post=114257]Sounds like rust, oil floats on water.

Your coolant went down is the interesting bit!

How long did it take to go down?

How much by?

Have you checked for leaks?[/quote]

It was just a very minor loss. I did the top up after many months. And there is no leaks externally.

This is how it looks.

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[Edward]

Coolant as well as having ‘anti-freeze’ properties, also has a rust inhibitor. If its not changed regularly it loses it’s rust inhibiting properties and the internal passages do start to corrode….. What you have here is normal for systems not regularly serviced or ran on tap water.

Don’t worry about it.

[Rahul Jones]

Thanks…. I feel a lot relieved now….. 🙂

[Erin]

When oil is mixing with antifreeze, it looks like chocolate milk. However, it doesn’t taste as good.

[Ingvar]

Here’s bunch of pics of what oil milk shake looks like:

http://www.simple-car-answers.com/Blown-Head-Gasket.html

And you SHOULD be worried. Reason being is simple. You got that stuff where you see it? How MUCH of it is everywhere else you do NOT see it? All small passages now plugged by it? No telling from your post how many miles on your car, but I had cars with coolant NEVER flushed all the way into 300 000 miles and never had any of such build up. Whatever it is. It’s a sediment of some nature, so it pugs whatever it can.
My safe bet is this engine ran for quite some time on water, or mostly water, and not the distilled kind, resulting in calcium deposits build up. I am almost safe to say, that that engine boiled a few times in its history, as THEN calcium and other minerals really coalesce into hard sediment.
What you need, and sooner than later, is complete system flush with some serious solvent for such build up.
Best.

[Edward]

Flushing is good practice, but you didn’t suggest that there were any running or over heating problems before changing the coolant. Had you not bothered the car would have probably (‘probably’ because who knows) carried on for years without a problem.

When eventually it did over heat (if it was because of the rust) the rust would have built up in the radiator channels, long before the engine channels. (because they are smaller and get clogged easier).

The fact that you have simply changed the coolant is in my opinion sufficient preventative maintance. You can flush the coolant as well but either way I still think you have nothing to worry about.

If its not broken don’t fix it, as they say.

Kdr

[Erin]

So yeah it probably has a lot of junk built up in the passages.
Maybe take it in for a professional flushing.

If there is already blockage and damage, it is not likely an honest flush will make things worse.
It still runs and doesn’t overheat so it cannot be at the end of it’s road yet.

One thing you could do is pull a valve cover (not so difficult) and just see what it looks like underneath. it if is just oil, you should be in good shape.

[Rahul Jones]

i carried out the coolant flushing as a preventive measure. Also, I am slowing getting a plan of buying an SUV for myself as I started going places with no roads lately. I want the buyer to be happy with the car. As with me it was a trouble free Italian mean machine. B)

I checked with my buddy an Alfa Romeo specialist, he said I kept the desalinated tap water in there too long.

[EricTheCarGuy]

Yea a flush was the way to go as it did appear to be rust in the system. Also, be sure to run antifreeze in there to prevent rust in the future.

Good luck with your SUV search. I recommend you get it checked out before you buy it. SUV’s can be expensive to maintain and as a result people sell them when they need service or major repairs.

You might also find this helpful.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/what-to-look-for-in-a-used-car-purchase

[Author]

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