[larrymck]

2001 Excursion with no mods and 100,500 miles. Noticed my anti freeze about 3/4" low. So I checked my engine oil and it looks to have a green tent. It also seems to have a small lifter tick from the engine. Oil does not look milky but looks normal except for a slight green tent. Did not notice any oil in the tank of the radiator. Any good tricks for determining if it is a head gasket or an oil cooler problem. Or any quick ways of testing for anti freeze that I can do my self since it is Friday and I don’t think I can get an oil sample done this weekend.


Thanks

 

[Gooch]

I'm guessing you just have a bad hose clamp or a water pump starting to seep. A 3/4" loss in the degas bottle isn't much to go on. Temperature changes can do that. And some oils tend to look like they have a green tint to them, naturally. Coolant in the oil will almost always cause the oil to be milky on the stick, or at least settle out and show up when draining.

Let the truck sit over night, and then remove the oil drain plug. If you have coolant in the oil, it will come out first, as soon as you pull the plug. You could keep a sample of it for testing. Also you could apply pressure to the cooling system and check for leak-down. A bad head gasket usually results in sweet, white smoke, mostly during cold start-up. Oil coolers either leak internally or externally. If you don't see anything externally, you will almost always see an oil film in your degas bottle. I'm guessing your lifter noise is just a noisey injector. Let us know what you find.

 

[larrymck]

Re: Oil cooler or head gasket?

I am going to try and find someplace that can do a quick sample on the engine oil in the morning to see if I have anti freeze in the engine oil. The louder tick is what got me checking things out. I will do a cylinder drop out test once I confirm I don’t have antifreeze in the oil. I would try and pressurize the radiator but my tester does not have the adapter to fit the tank. I might go out and see if I can screw the hose in some were.

 

[larrymck]

Re: Oil cooler or head gasket?

Maybe I jumped the gun I have the radiator pumped up to 15 PSI and no drop in pressure yet. I just have to find my TICK TICK TICK sound.

 

[arisley]

Re: Oil cooler or head gasket?

Have you done the hutch mod????? Could be a little air in the fuel line.

 

[Oneof6]

Re: Oil cooler or head gasket?

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I jumped the gun I have the radiator pumped up to 15 PSI and no drop in pressure yet. I just have to find my TICK TICK TICK sound.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sound diagnosis, tick - tick - tick. Not much to go on. Try to isolate the sound to a specific area before a repair. That sound could be a pulley, alternator or some panel being resonated. Does the tick vary with RPM? Maybe some frequency difference can be detected to pin it down a little more.

 

[larrymck]

UPDATE Re: Oil cooler or head gasket?

OK, as I said earlier I jumped the gun on the oil cooler or head gasket. Had at TICK TICK sounded like a lifter so I checked the oil thinking low oil pressure causing the tick and it looked green? Dark outside must have been the lighting. That was not the problem for sure. So I was still thinking a lifter or injector. Did a buzz test and a cylinder comparison test. No change in the sound. Rev the engine up to above 1400 rpm and sound goes away. Removed fan belt and started it up and sound goes away all together. Hmm. Check all the idlers and pulleys can’t find anything wrong. What the heck I decided to change the water pump and clutch fan since I got over 100,000 on it and plan on keeping it awhile. Found the problem once I removed the water pump pulley. It was cracked in several places and as you can see from the picture it was cracked all the way around on of the bolt holes. It must have been flexing causing the tick tick. I would have bet $100.00 that it was a lifter/valve train sound. http://members.cox.net/larryteri/Water%20pump%20pulley001.JPG

 

[arisley]

UPDATE Re: Oil cooler or head gasket?

That sure enough looks like the problem.