Question : Leaking oil into coolant 2.8 v6

[Tharr71]

Does anyone have some ideas?
I have a Fiero which is leaking oil into my coolant.

Originally the motor was built by a mechanic who put the heads on the wrong side. I decided to swap them over. When I did this I was very lazy...didn't use head bolt sealant, reused the gaskets, reused head bolts.

Recently I pulled the motor apart and did it properly; new gaskets, new head bolts and head bolt sealer(Indian head gasket brand). All surfaces carefully cleaned and torqued down to correct specs.

I am STILL getting oil in coolant. Does anyone have an idea as to what else could be causing this problem.

Cheers Tim

[caffeine]

Intake gaskets or timing cover gasket?

[caffeine]

Also, I don't think it matters what head is on which side as long as you swap sensors as needed.

[Tharr71]

I haven't touched the timing cover or water pump. Just did head gaskets and intake gaskets.

You are correct caffeine, heads do go on both ways. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have swapped them on a fresh motor that hadn't even been started...

Having this motor built was a long and frustrating experience of excuses from mechanic which I won't go into here.

I don't really know if the oil leak was pre existing, or I created it by swapping the heads.

[caffeine]

Leaking oil into coolant 2.8 v6

Seems like timing cover gasket is the most likely culprit. Fortunately it's super cheap.

[Guest]

I can't think of any gasket that would cause oil to go into the coolant, but not the other way.

[1988GTU]

Aux cooler sharing coolant radiator? If so, that could be cross-contaminating the coolant.

[Tharr71]

Raven -I only assume there is no coolant in the oil because it is always nice and clean, whereas the coolant looks like chocolate milk.

Gtu- there are no auxiliary coolers to cross contaminate. The car is a manual so there are no oil lines travelling through the radiator from a gearbox

[Guest]

Are you sure that the coolant isn't just old and in need of flushing?

[Tharr71]

I have flushed the coolant many times. The coolant had to be emptied to put new head gaskets etc. in anyway.

[Tharr71]

Update

When we pulled the heads off the motor, we discovered that there were four cracked headbolt holes. These were the ones that went into the water jacket.

To fix it the engineer has installed a product called "kingserts" which will seal up the cracks. The engineer says this will be stronger than the original holes.

Hopefully no more oil in the water.

[1988GTU]

In the heads or the block? Pictures of the troubled area?