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Coolant Color Dark and Greasy

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er82

Proven Member
243
28
Apr 18, 2014
Sacramento, California
So my 1G had major coolant leak due to bad water pump. Now I'm getting to replace it. When I drained the radiator the color of coolant was mostly green. When I removed the radiator and spilled some coolant and the color of it was black and greasy. Anybody know what that means? The oil on dipstick is still clean. Is it the headgasket? A while back I did a compression check and one cylinder was low, while two others were a bit high.


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Let the coolant sit over night and see if you get any separation. If you see oil then I'd suspect a HG especially with the low number in the one cyl. A leak down test would be the next step bro, Or coolant pressure test! ;)
 
Compression was:
#1 180
#2 150
#3 160
#4 175

I suppose I could try checking it again.
LOL thats actually really good still. Dirt and muck does settle at the bottom of the radiator over time. Thats why youre actually supposed to flush the system every couple of years. I doubt your hg is the issue, but it could be, dont get me wrong.
 
Like Dsmkauai said, let it sit and look for separation, but that sure looks like contaminated coolant. You could also send off a sample for analysis to a company like Blackstone Labs but in this case that is probably a waste of money as the answer looks obvious.
 
With that amount of difference between the inner and outer cylinders I would say at somepoint the head lifted.

What brand of compression tester did you use?

Results the same with a wet and a dry test?

Leakdown results would be great.

I own 2 gauges, a harbor freight and a matco. The matco is a lot more accurate. The harbor freight gauge is useful for tossing in my box when I am looking at buying cars.
 
With that amount of difference between the inner and outer cylinders I would say at somepoint the head lifted.

What brand of compression tester did you use?

Results the same with a wet and a dry test?

Leakdown results would be great.

I own 2 gauges, a harbor freight and a matco. The matco is a lot more accurate. The harbor freight gauge is useful for tossing in my box when I am looking at buying cars.

I used Harbor Freight compression tester.

So the dry numbers were:
#1 180
#2 150
#3 160
#4 175

And here are the wet numbers:
#1 185
#2 160
#3 170
#4 185

So the low cylinders improved by 10 psi. Does that mean bad rings? Or headgasket?

Per EricTheCarGuy on youtube, if low compression on adjacent cylinders it could be the head gasket.

I ordered OTC compression and leak down testers, to see the difference.

BTW the engine supposedly has 68k mi per the odometer.
 
I did the compression test again with OTC gauge and the numbers are all 5 psi higher.

I also did a leak down test starting at 50 psi. For some reason it wont go higher than 60 psi even though i set it to 100 on the compressor.
#1 - 5 psi lower
#2 - 20 psi lower
#3 - 15 psi lower
#4 - 5 psi lower

I tried to listen to where the sound is coming from. It all seemed to come from crank case. Especially from cylinder #2. I don't have coolant in the engine anymore, so no bubbles to see, but i didn't hear any sounds from thermostat housing either.

So, is 40% leak bad for cylinder #2?
 
I did the compression test again with OTC gauge and the numbers are all 5 psi higher.

I also did a leak down test starting at 50 psi. For some reason it wont go higher than 60 psi even though i set it to 100 on the compressor.
#1 - 5 psi lower
#2 - 20 psi lower
#3 - 15 psi lower
#4 - 5 psi lower

I tried to listen to where the sound is coming from. It all seemed to come from crank case. Especially from cylinder #2. I don't have coolant in the engine anymore, so no bubbles to see, but i didn't hear any sounds from thermostat housing either.

So, is 40% leak bad for cylinder #2?

I re-tried the leak down test for cylinder #2 and I felt a breeze from the turbo. I guess that would mean a leaky exhaust valve.
 
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