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240 Water only in top end.

TempleUWS6

Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Location
Celebration, FL
My '90 245's 318K mile B230F has been collecting water at the oil cap and on the dipstick for the past week. I performed a coolant flush the end of last week since it was mostly water as I've had an extremely slow leak most of the summer and had just been topping it up. I couldn't really find any external leaks, no puddles, maybe some seepage from the thermostat housing that I addressed when I did the flush.

The next day I noticed a good amount of condensation in a thick light brown film on the oil cap with the stick looking similar. I also pulled the flame trap and same deal. Fearing total head gasket failure, I dropped the oil and surprisingly there was no trace of water in it.

Poured in new oil and have been driving for the past week and put on over 200miles over the weekend. It's slowly lost water in the overflow over this time with continuing evidence of water in the top end. When I check the stick its mostly oil, with a slight bit of choco froth and water droplets along the dip.

Any thoughts? Should I just dive in and change the HG, or could there possibly be another cause? I'm going to look into the combustion chambers tonight with my inspection scope to what's going on in there. Car drives just fine. Could there just be a pinhole leak in the HG between an oil and coolant passages allowing just a small amount of water into the oil and its mostly vaporizing and collecting in the head?

EDIT: I'd like to add, the car has never overheated and the cooling system holds pressure. I even check it out last night after being parked for several hours, the cap was making a faint squealing sound and when I unscrewed it, pressure released.
 
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You might pick up an antifreeze exhaust gas test kit from any auto parts store, good way to confirm coolant is getting into the combustion chamber.

Could there just be a pinhole leak in the HG between an oil and coolant passages allowing just a small amount of water into the oil and its mostly vaporizing and collecting in the head?

My brother had this happen to his 745. He'd slowly loose coolant, but there weren't any drips or signs of an external leak.

If it is the HG, it's really not that bad of a job to do. Just take your time and there are plenty of guides on this site and the brickboard FAQ that take you along step by step. It's also a good time to replaces seals, belts and refresh the PCV system.
 
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It sounds like you have a very slow coolant leak allowing the coolant to get in the crank case. The heat causes it to vaporize and collect on the highest surfaces of the engine. It may be a crack in the head or block. Possibly, a head gasket failing. It won't be easy to locate given how little it is leaking. You might try some stop leak and see if that takes care of it. The GM version in pellet form works well for this type of issue.
 
318k miles on a B230? Time for a head gasket. Now if it was a B21 or B23 maybe not. But most every B230 I've had wears out the head gasket in some way to leak coolant somewhere. They are robust engines that wear out all the gaskets in them before the engine would wear out.

The sneakiest one I've encountered was a slow steady coolant loss. Had to add a little coolant about every week. None in the oil and no apparent external leaks. Pass compression, leakdown, and exhaust gas in the coolant tests.
I finally pinned down the issue by adding the dye to the coolant and discovered it was coming out of the back of the head where it's hard to see it. Probably only leaking at speed during the highway driving. Head gasket was toast along the back edge of the head/block.
That was about 380k miles on a friends 1990 245.
 
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