After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine?
 

I only had it running at an idle for a minute at this while we were trying to troubleshoot why it was running so badly.

Needless to say, I switched the oil and filter immediately. The oil was a coffee-cream color.

Could that ruin the engine right there? I have a buddy telling me it can, that it breaks down the oil and ruins the cylindar walls. What do you think?

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (sspackman)
 

I should also mention it backfired a few times really bad and I hear that this can cause a head gasket to go quicker than anything. It was never in drive, only idle this first time. And then I shut it down and took it all back apart.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (sspackman)
 

was the timing off is that why it backfired .I have had collant in the oil before when i was doing a headgasket .Never drove far usally to get timing set and test my work and the quickly canged it and it was all good motor ran fine.It would not be good to drive up and down the street with the water there but i think you will be ok.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (sspackman)
 

Backfire ruin a head gasket while idleing,.... An NA non-NOS engine,... no not unless it was bad to begin with.

Coolant ruin an engine,.... no. It is not what you want happening,... but there is no need to throw it all away. Do you have new rings in there? W/ a little luck, they will still seat.
It all comes down to how long the engine ran w/ coolant in the oil. How heavy was the engine loaded while it ran thsi way. How much coolant in the oil are we talking about.
If you description is accurate,... fix the coolant leak, and you sould be fine.


Been there done that.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (ZylaRace)
 

It wasn't run for very long. As a matter of fact, it was pretty tough to even keep it running at all because the intake hadn't sealed correctly and everything was running everywhere. I guess my friend was just a little concerned. Concerned enough to tell me that he thought I had hurt other things in the engine other than just the coolant mixing in with the oil.

Question is: Now that it's happened. What steps do I follow next? Will there possibly still be coolant in any of my cylindars? Hell, I drove the car to work today and it was OK, but not great. If I need to do something, I have the tools with me right now to do it.

Thanks!

Shayne

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (ZylaRace)
 

:iagree: Me, too! Buick V-6 head gasket rusted out; oil in water, water in oil.

New head & intake gaskets and oil & filter change (twice) and it was fine.


[Modified by Rich B., 6:25 PM 7/25/2003]

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (Rich B.)
 

If you let it sit there for quite a while the bearings would start to rust up from the sugar in the coolant. You should be fine though. Heck I had coolant shooting out my tailpipes last year. :D

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (scorp508)
 

:iagree:

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (scorp508)
 

That sounds reasonable!!! Out of your tailpipes, that was after the bolt though, right? Or did you just blow a gasket?

I just want to make sure from everyone up here now that the knowledge is out there that I got coolant into the oil system that I don't need to purge anything out of my cylindars or do anything else. I don't know all about this hydrolock but I hear it can be a real beotch. That's why I'm checking.

Thanks! :cheers:

p.s. I'm still taking the car down to a shop I trust that knows Corvettes really well on Monday and they are going to go through it and make sure it all looks good.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (sspackman)
 

if it gets in the cylinders you can easily bend a rod.
if you hit the starter and it just clunks (ever),dont try it again.
immediately pull the plugs out and turn it over.
if theres coolant in there itll blow out the holes.
antifreeze wont hurt the rings (to my knowledge)but i have seen it etch the cylinder walls with a strange looking pattern before.
probly harmless.
what it does do thats bad is attacks the coatings on the bearing shells.
on big diesel engines a common practice to remove the coolant residue in the oil areas is to run some butyl seldesol in with fresh oil,then change it several times in a row.
cat/cummins engines dont drain completely when you drop the oil due to many places in the castings that hold oil so thats proly another reason to use a "gatherer" agent on them.
i think your probly fine just changing the oil a couple of times.
howd the coolant get there?

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (sspackman)
 

FYI,

Common anti-freeze is made up of mostly ethlyene-glycol and dyes acting as a product marker for the various brands. This is mixed with water to makeup the coolant in out cars. Ethlyene-glycol is excellent for this purpose because of it's high boiling point as well as it's good lubrication and rust preventing properties.

Contrary to what was mentioned here, it does not contain sugar (does anyone really believe that?) but it does have a "sweet" smell and it does not cause rust.
If it did cause rust, the bare metal insides of the iron engine block would be the first to suffer. What causes rust is an improper mixture of water and anti-freeze (usually not enough anti-freeze) which lets the water do it's damage.

BIG JIM

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (sspackman)
 

I know water in your oil is very bad for the bearings but since you didn't have the engine under load it'll probably be fine.

A friend of mine runs a shop. One of his employees was pressure testing the cooling system on a 3.8L oldsmobile. The coolant was going somewhere, just couldn't find out where. He kept adding water until he found the leak....when the water came out of the dip-stick he knew where it was. :) After numerous oil changes, running the engine hot, etc. to get the water out of the oil the engine was fine. It's still running today with no unusal sounds.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (Atok)
 

As long as it wasnt running very long it should be fine.

On another note, if left for a while coolant/water/oil form kind of a sludge that should not be run as it will stop up your oil pump.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (thepenguin99)
 

Short term no problem, it happens all the time when intake or head gaskes fail. The most common problem with oil/water mixture is bearing damage to the soft metals IE copper/tin due to the acidy ph level greated. This takes time, and heat to happen not to mention some more time and combustion gases. So relax if every time water and oil mixed it ruind the engine I would loose alot of income from replacing head and intake gaskets.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (jefft84)
 

Something similar happened to me. I discovered I had a bad head gasket last spring. I spent all summer and most of the winter tearing out the heads and replacing the head gaskets; the oil pan was just FULL of oil and coolant when I drained the oil!

After finishing the head gasket change and bolting everything back together, I put fresh oil in the engine (regular 5W-30, not Mobile 1), fired it up and set the ignition timing. Once that was done, I ran a bottle of STP Engine Flush through the oil system just to make sure I got as much of the old oil-coolant mix out of my engine as possible. I then drained the oil out, and put fresh new 5W-30 Mobile 1 into the engine, and it's been trouble and hassle free since.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (TheCorvetteKid)
 

:iagree:

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (vettek50)
 

When I found coolant in my oil (from the intake leak) I changed the oil a few times and ran it each time to circulate everything and hopefully got any moisture off the bearing surfaces.

Once you get it sealed up and replace the oil, just get it all up to temperature, and all that water will boil away. The antifreeze on the other hand, I dunno, but it won't rust your internals I don't think.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (sspackman)
 

BAH!

you'll be fine.

Re: After antifreeze mixed in with the oil, does that ruin the engine? (sspackman)
 

Shayne,

As I said before, the water-antifreeze wasn't in there long enough to hurt anything. A back fire, by definition is an explosion, OUTSIDE of the cylinder. The LAST thing it would hurt, is the head gasket. DO, take it to your trusted mechanic, but I am confident, he'll find nothing seriously wrong. Rest easy, and...

RACE ON!!!