MTFCA Forum

oK, I have discovered water/antifreeze in the oil and oil in the radiator, this on an engine with a Rajo head installed as well as a pressurized oil system.
I'm not real familiar with this Rajo head, is this the result of a head gasket leak or something worse? bummer!!!
New to me car, with only about 5 miles on this oil change. Photo is of a sample of the oil I just drained out.

Rod

I would suspect the head gasket, you can do a cylinder leak test before pulling the head and maybe see where/which cylinders are leaking.

TDC, hold the engine from turning and pressurize the cylinder at TDC, check for bubbles in the radiator...
Does oil pressure run up top ?

Ruxstel24 wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:15 pm

I would suspect the head gasket, you can do a cylinder leak test before pulling the head and maybe see where/which cylinders are leaking.

TDC, hold the engine from turning and pressurize the cylinder at TDC, check for bubbles in the radiator...
Does oil pressure run up top ?

I didn't install the rajo/pressure system, but being that the valve cover is sealed to the head, I assume that there is oil pressure up there? I'll do a leakdown test as soon as I get my compressor running.

Thanks for the input
Rod

Probably a blown head gasket. It would help to know what head you have. Is it a 8-valve or a 4-valve. ?? Post a couple pictures of the head if you can ... The 4-valves are very prone to blown head gaskets. But there is a fix, if you have a 4-valve Rajo...

dobro1956 wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 05, 2019 11:08 pm

Probably a blown head gasket. It would help to know what head you have. Is it a 8-valve or a 4-valve. ?? Post a couple pictures of the head if you can ... The 4-valves are very prone to blown head gaskets. But there is a fix, if you have a 4-valve Rajo...

I've found out that the Rajo is a C-35 8 valve.
my understanding is that the car sat for an extended period of time without running before I got it. The previous owner said he changed the oil just before I had it picked up and the oil that was drained out was not discolored nor did it have any antifreeze in it. I'm taking him for his word. I suppose the long down time could be the culpret, cause it definitely had antifreeze in it this morning.

The 8 valve head gaskets are reasonably priced. My gut instinct says it is just a blown head gasket. A pressure test will help to prove that out. When you remove the head I will suggest to check the head and block surface very closely. Check them for cracks and flatness.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Have fun and be safe ...........

Run it and get it warm, shut it off. let it sit for awhile and then pull the plugs and crank t over and see if there is coolant in the cylinders. The only two ways to get water in the oil is down the cylinders or thru the valve chamber- either via the valve guides / pushrod holes from the head or a water jacket crack in the valve chamber. If no water in the cylinders, pull the side cover nd have a look in there.

When we saw those symptoms on Ricky (1915 Speedster), the head gasket had failed between cylinders 2 and 3. I think the (Reeder) aluminum head warped near the center water hole.

I think I have fond the problem, The previous owner speculated that an existing radiator leak might be traveling down the block and pan, thus ending up on the drain pipe and might be what I was seeing and concluding that it was a leaking drain plug. Made sense, so I started investigating. I cleaned down the whole engine, ran her up to operating temp, shut her down and started looking for antifreeze. Well the Po was partially right in his thoughts. There was a trail of antifreeze coming from the leak in the radiator, but it did not travel to the drain plug. I then noticed that the bottom radiator hose had a small leak, after about a half hour I went back to check on that leak and while it did not travel to the drain plug it was heading in that direction. I had just cleaned up the engine, so I am guessing that I changed the pathway it was taking before.

Prior to all this, I went through Dan McEachern’s procedure as follows:
I refilled the crankcase with oil, refilled the radiator and measured its level, started and ran the engine until operating temperature was reached, let it cool down over night and rechecked the radiator level. It hadn’t changed. I ran the engine back up to operating temperature, let it cool down for about 3 hours, pulled the plugs and looked for h20/antifreexe in the cylinders (hard to see on a Rajo, but nothing was visible. Pulled the valve cover and again nothing visible
I’m going to run this engine multiple times with this oil, take a sample and have it analyzed by Blackstone Laboratories.

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my problem.

Rod