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New head gasket, coolant in intercooler piping, milky PCV

bmdubya1198

Active member
Joined
Aug 24, 2016
Location
Charlotte, NC
Here we go again... this car is driving me nuts. I recently replaced the head on my 940 with a freshly resurfaced 530 NA head that I had on hand, and since then it's been consuming coolant (and running very poorly, but no worse than before hand). Every time I drive it, I fill the coolant to the full mark, and when I get home is at the low mark. Same thing every time, and I've put probably 200-300 miles on it. No coolant leaks that I can find ANYWHERE. System holds pressure when I test it.

I've noticed a little milky oil at the top of my dip stick, but not really in the oil. Maybe a little streaky, but nothing major. After removing the IC piping today to check for boost leaks, I noticed a significant amount of oil (turbo is shot) and some coolant droplets in the elbow just before the throttle body. The PCV hose to the PTC is full of milky residue, and when I pop the hose off the oil trap, it's full of it too. The oil in the head looks fine when I pull the cap, but there is some milkiness on the cap itself. I figured before that it was just moisture from short drives, but this has persisted since I finished the head gasket job. Needless to say, I'm fed up with this car.

I'm pretty certain the head gasket is leaking, but why? I used an AJUSA head gasket kit and the cylinder head was perfectly clean and flat when I installed everything. I cleaned the block surface the best I could. Maybe there's a problem with the gasket itself?
Compression numbers are fine, still a little low on cylinder 1 just like it was before. Shaky vacuum gauge at idle like always. No issues I can find on that end, I have a whole long thread on that issue. All I can think is that the rings on cylinder 1 are totally shot since I have a good amount of crankcase pressure.

Here are a couple pics of the mess.

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There is no problem. I got oil into my coolant when I had the head off, and I still haven't got the gunk outta the tank from the contamination.
 
There is no problem. I got oil into my coolant when I had the head off, and I still haven't got the gunk outta the tank from the contamination.

Good point, that's definitely a possibility. When I check the dip stick, the oil itself looks pretty good.

I'm still wondering where the heck the coolant is going. My only other thought is the heater core, but I don't have any coolant leaking onto my floor.
 
Well I think I found the problem... definitely a leak on the back left corner of the head, right under the #4 plug. It looks to be coolant, but it's hard to tell. The block is definitely wet.
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The dipstick looks pretty milky too now after a drive.
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You'll be fine. I had to loosen mine and start over when I blew up my torque wrench in the middle of angle torquing them. :oops:
 
Retorqued the head bolts... seems to be leaking ever so slightly more now. Wonderful! I just cracked them slightly loose, then torqued them in stages per the specifications (15 ft. lb., 43 ft. lb., 90*).

Now the car is hesitating a little bit with steady throttle while cruising. It never ends!
 
Did a compression test the other day. Nothing points to a combustion leak (although I can smell coolant while driving it) but it's definitely still leaking from that corner. I'll keep the hesitation related stuff in my other thread that's already far too long!
 
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