Oil in Coolant

I have a 92 Regal with the 3800 engine. I'm looking to sell but not looking to rip someone off either, time for newer car and not the reason I'm selling it.

It's got oil in the coolant only which I just noticed. It lost some coolant but not much, radiator is still full but nothing in the reserve. No coolant in the oil, that looks good and smells like oil. No coolant in the trans fluid, that looks a little darker red than it should be but I never had it changed. No loss of power, no white smoke from the tail pipe so I don't think it's the head gasket.

My research says this is probably an issue with the upper and lower intake gaskets, am I on the right track here? Appears it's not that big of a job and should be fairly cheap to do myself.

FYI if you're interested in this car let me know. It's in really good shape. Be a really nice starter car or second car but perhaps a little bit too much power for jr. I probably have $1K in the suspension and brakes recently. New rotors, brakes and struts all the way around. At most they have 10K on them. Probably looking to sell for about $1400.

Most likely intake gaskets, the ones used during that time period on numerous GM engines are notorious for leaking...... Getting ready to do them on my '97 K1500 pickup. Shouldn't be bad if you can do your own wrenching.

Richard S. wrote:My research says this is probably an issue with the upper and lower intake gaskets, am I on the right track here?

Yes. common problem on the 3800.

Where does the oil flow thru the intakes??????? The distributor? My money is on the head gasket.

Scottscoaled wrote:Where does the oil flow thru the intakes??????? The distributor? My money is on the head gasket.

I would not think its intake either, not the same design as the problem 3.1 and 3.4 the 3800 uses a different head and intake design. The 3800 that had the intake problems were the ones that had the plastic upper plenums, but I don't think they came about till 96 ( could be wrong though)

I would look elsewhere

Coalfire wrote:

Scottscoaled wrote:Where does the oil flow thru the intakes??????? The distributor? My money is on the head gasket.

I would not think its intake either, not the same design as the problem 3.1 and 3.4 the 3800 uses a different head and intake design. The 3800 that had the intake problems were the ones that had the plastic upper plenums, but I don't think they came about till 96 ( could be wrong though)

I would look elsewhere

I stand corrected, just looking and seen these things do have plastic intakes, At any rate would still be suspicious of oil in coolant all gm intakes Ive ever done were for coolant leaks.

My first suspect would be the transmission cooler in the bottom of the radiator. I would pull the transmission lines and charge the cooler with 10-15# with the cap off. If you get bubbles, that's it. A cheap aftermarket cooler and it's fixed in 20 minutes, about $40-50 I would think.

I recently bought a Crown Vic and the coolant was the same color as oil. I'd swear it is oil from the looks of it. But it smelled like antifreeze, not oil. anyway I drained and flushed it and its been fine since. It tested fine temp wise floating all the balls. So maybe whatever did it was fixed.

It scared the hell out of me and I did a lot of research and one thing that made sense was that it wasnt oil because it was black water. Oil would be that ugly brown if mixed with water. And I had no water in my oil.

Now heres the problem. I cant remember what an article said it was, lol I think it was some metal type shavings or carbon mixed with the water.

Is your water black or that light brown color? if brown forget everything I said as its oil.

coaledsweat wrote:My first suspect would be the transmission cooler in the bottom of the radiator.

I read about that but everything I read said there would be coolant in the trans? That's thing with this, there is no coolant in either the oil or trans fluid. It's just the oil in the coolant.

warminmn wrote:
Is your water black or that light brown color? if brown forget everything I said as its oil.

It's that light brown color, looks like chocolate milk. It just a little floating on the top.

The EX had a Chev. Lumina w/ the 3800 & had the same symptoms--I used some top of the line NAPA head gasket sealer & it worked for a couple-three yrs--BUT in the long run, it came back with anti-freeze in the oil--unfortunately, it was cheaper to get a used motor then to do a head gasket job--$1500.00 for the whole swap job with 2 yr warranty on the used motor:) Wish I had better news with my experience.

You will need to replace the manifold
http://www.amazon.com/Dorman-615-180-Intake-Manif ... e+manifold

Sell it as is - full disclosure - ask 500.00 OBO

I'd throw in a bottle of K-Seal and call it day.

I fixed a coolant leak out the heater core of our '86 Grand Marquis that way over 10 years ago. Probably added 5 more bottles over the years ....

Engine still going strong at 217k miles.

All GM "V" block engines have cross flow passages in intake manifolds, to flow coolant from front to back of heads and back to block to water pump.

Before freaking out too much, are you sure it is oil?
If you mix regular green antifreeze with the new orange antifreeze it will turn colors and form a scum that looks like engine oil. Had a friend bring me his wife's Oldsmobile mini-van saying he had oil in the antifreeze, I checked it out, flushed the cooling system, ran it with clear water in the system for a week and than flushed it again. The black scum was gone from the system and the water had a brown tinge to it. Filled it with fresh extended life antifreeze and she ran it for another two years before selling it to her daughter who than wrecked it when she hit a deer.
Dan.