Engine oil in coolant....advice needed...

oil in coolant....advice needed...

So, for about the past 30,000 miles, I've noticed that any time I pull the radiator cap off, it is gummed up with this dark red, slimy gobby goo. Not A LOT, but enough to worry me. Looking down into the radiator neck, there's a visible thin film of oil floating on top of the coolant. Rolling a paper towel and sticking it down in the rad neck, it also brings out these dark red globs - oil I suppose. I've been using the redline coolant additive - would this cause the coolant to glob up like this? Never overheated, but driven pretty hard at times. Cooling system seems to function pretty normally, otherwise. Engine temp runs about 185ºF while driving.

Aside from possible contamination by me during changing the coolant, where at would oil get into the coolant? Head gasket? Are there other places?

Thanks,
Trav

Redline's water wetter is probably not compatible with your coolant. Chech this out;
http://www.audifans.com/archives/1998/09/msg00333.html
and; http://www.msprotege.com/forum/arch...dex.php/t-72178
and: http://list.miata.net/miata/1999-04/2041.html

Dominator - you've saved the day yet once again. I'm 95% sure that the Water wetter is what I'm seeing, and NOT engine oil - after reading those posts, that is. One page had a response from Redline themselves stating that the precipitate will dissolve back into solution once the coolant is warmed up and circulated. Truthfully, it does seem to be much worse when the engine is cold (coolant at ambient temp). Visible globs. If the coolant is warm, it's not globules so much as just a thin. barely visible film on the surface (indicating to me that it does dissolve back into solution with some heating.

Odd....coolant leaking into the oil is a common sign of HG failure, but I had never heard of oil leaking into the coolant.

The overflow tank is also stained red inside - kind of like it's all gummed up in there.

Thanks,
Trav

Yeah i put a bottle of water wetter in the lexus, when hot their is no gunky stuff in my resevoir. But after work, or when it had had a chance to cool down to ambient temp it seems a little gunky.

Btw what color coolant do you have, pink or green. On my past corollas with green coolant the water wetter never gunks it up. Not sure yet of the phsical properties and differences between pink/green coolant, but i'll look it up and try to figure it out.

some brands of coolant are actually red in color. as far as i can remember, the oem coolant from toyota dealer is red in color. when i got my 03 corolla, the coolant was red in color and looked a bit oily as well.

when this usually happen with SAAB..i just go replace the head gasket. but one thing saab has a headgasket problem though. usually its the head gasket.