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Water in oil, not head gasket though...

GMHVF6

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Hey guys, for the past like 2-3 months if have a VERY slow build up of pale brown gunk on the bottom of the radiator cap. Slow being, il wipe off the gunk stuff once every 3 weeks and its less then a teaspoon.

There is no gunk stuff building up under the engine oil cap and no steam coming out the exhaust and the car runs fine, although once in awhile when the car is idling it with shake for a split second like something is passing though the motor that shouldn't, aka a drop of coolant or oil somewhere it shouldn't be..

So what other possible places could oil/coolant leak into very slowly... i really want this fixed before it turns into a massive leak or something bad
 

social

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yep ozzie beat me to it id put my money on the exact same thing. Check the levels / colour of your transmission stick.
 

GMHVF6

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my transmission fluid was down a fair but and my transmission started playing up, i added more fluid and it was fine again, the fluid looked bright red still though. How would i go about checking if it is the transmission cooler
 

Kunu

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I had the same problem and my rear main seal had gone allowing oil to slowly drip into cooling lines., had brown gunge under cap and inside run-off box.
 

Simonn

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rear main seal? if that had gone it would only allow engine oil into the bell housing.
it would either be a cracked trans cooler inside the radiator or like me a inlet manifold gasket is gone.
 

stevesvx2001

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its your oil cooler bro its one of the seals where the coolant meets the oil and cooles it down, when you fix it make sure you take off the top of your radiator and give it a realllllllllly good clean cause the sludge will start to block off some of the fins you can do this easyly with a old dip stick. if you leave it long enough you will clog up you cooling system and you will find it over heating, but it might not show on gauge cause the sludge could be covering your coolant temp sender, also the coolant getting into your oil and can cause pressure that can start causing all sorts of problems
 

Kunu

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rear main seal? if that had gone it would only allow engine oil into the bell housing.
it would either be a cracked trans cooler inside the radiator or like me a inlet manifold gasket is gone.
Well it hadnt gone completly ,it had a small crack in it which was allowing engine oil to leak through to the cooling lines, once i replaced it the problem was solved also needed a good flush out twice to make sure all the gunk was gone.In saying that its a process of elimination really.

Here's a pic
http://forums.justcommodores.com.au/members/kunu-albums-random-picture5826-rear-main.html
 

Ozzie

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If it was the rear main seal there would be coolant in the engine making the oil a creamy colour.

The trans cooler line has preasure in it allowing oil into the radiator without allowing coolant into the transmission.

Its fairly common if the car has been constantly in economy mode then driven in power mode then switched back to economy.

An easy temp fix is to use some transmission stopleak and/or radiator stopleak to seal the leak within.
 

Simonn

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