BILLOWING white smoke

fuurgoncin

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an O ring only holds it seal once...you cannot "swap" them out....you need new o-rings... always..... everywhere..........rebuild it....and reverse flush the block ....how recent is the waterpump ?
 

Kraig

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I've never heard of going that in depth after getting coolant in the oil. Is that common practice?
 

Kraig

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I did not reuse any Orings. I replaced the whole unit with all other know good cooler I had.
 

greenskeeper

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When I pressurize the coolant to 5psi I get a steady stream out of th oil drain plug (oil drained of course)
The only thing that could do that, aside from catastrophic block/head failure is the injector/cup/orings. If any of those isn't completely seated (or a o-ring tear) that would be a direct path for the coolant to travel to the pan.

Pressurizing only the coolant side and not the high pressure oil side has made the path even easier. That may be why the white smoke comes and goes depending on how well the o-rings or whatever isn't seated correctly can hold.

A major failure would have white smoke all of the time.

I still stand by the fact that the problem occurred shortly after the injector work, so it's probably related to that.
 

greenskeeper

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unfortunately you need to rebuild /replace the oil cooler....change the oil and replace the ICP and maybe the IPR just for kicks and giggles you most likely ly have corrupted the hpop and the entire HUEI system so you need to start over...AT least I would...
I wouldn't. Changing the oil will purge enough of the water out of the system. Perhaps do an early oil change or two after getting the problem fixed.
 

Kraig

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I was sure hoping you were going to comment on this greenskeeper. I appreciate the info.
the only reason I have not pulled the injectors yet and fooled with the oil cooler is because no one could really tell me if a failed oring or cup could provide such a direct path foe the coolant to get into the oil. Or in this case, into the empty pan when pressurizing the degas.
 

aggiediesel01

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Pretty sure the next easiest thing to check would be injector cups. Pull the valve covers and pressurize again and see if coolant is coming up past the injectors orings. If it’s not obvious there, then pull the injectors one at a time until you find a steam cleaned nozzle and see if you can hear it leaking down from there. Somewhere on these forums or google there’s a good cylinder head cutaway pic that shows the cups installed and their possible leak points.
 

aggiediesel01

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Here's a link to the pics I remember but they are kind of small and I can't find a larger version of the images. It's post 13 if the link doesn't take you directly there. Basically the lower portion of the injector cup is the water jacket so where it seals to the cyl head, if that fails then it's very possible to get coolant down into a cylinder. If coolant goes into the bore where the injector is, it could mix with fuel but that chamber is sealed by and oring on the body. I wonder if by chance when you resealed your injectors, one didn't get tightened down all the way or came loose or got just barely crooked in the bore? If the that happened, I wonder if combustion pressure could have possible lifted the cup off it's seal at the bottom?


Here's a youtube video that a guy did showing a close up of the cutaways as well

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Kraig

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I still cannot see how coolant can leaks so easily into the low pressure oil system from the injector cups. That is unless it's a terribly failed oring and if it was I would see it under the valve covers when pressuring the coolant system.
I do not see anything and it's a steady stream of water coming out of the oil pan when pressurizing the coolant system.
I pulled the water pump just to be safe and it was clean. I found a little piece that looked damaged but cannot see that it's a penetration. I will post photos.
 

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aggiediesel01

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You mentioned earlier that you noticed black spots in the coolant bottle. Are you sure it was oil or could it have been soot? Soot is classic injector cups, oil is usually the cooler but you have addressed that already.

If coolant is getting past the cups into the cylinder then it's down past the rings and into the crank case. With your injectors pulled you can still pressurize the cooling system and see which cylinder it's coming through. If coolant is passing through a combustion chamber, I'd be willing to bet that one of your injector tips is going to be much cleaner than the others and whatever the problem is, that cylinder will be where the problem lies whether its a leaking cup or head gasket or cracked head or what not. If you can hear the coolant draining into the pan then it may not be a cup but the only thing after that is head gasket or cracks in the head or block around the water jacket.

The only oil supply in the heads is from the push rods and the HP oil rail and there's no possible way to get coolant to the oil pan through the HP oil galley and even if it was possible, it wouldn't drain into the pan from there. HP oil only flows one direction, into the injectors after that it just drains back to the bottom with the lube oil from the pushrods so the only other place I can think of where coolant could run into the pan is with a blown head gasket? Where the coolant is following a leak between the head and block to the oil return ports and down to the pan? Maybe you can pressurize the system again and look down the oil drain ports and see if you can see water going there too?
 

greenskeeper

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engine oil wasn't a milky mess, correct?

did you pressurize the cooling system before or after you messed with the oil cooler? If the oil cooler isn't sealed properly that would be a direct path into the oil pan for the coolant to follow.

I think you're chasing two problems now.
 

Kraig

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I pressurized the degas before and after both oil coolers. Both acted identically as before. I have no issue believing I'm chasing two problems. But I just need to know what they are! Lol

I'm starting to lean heavily to blown head gasket but then it would smoke constantly right? The smoke issue is intermittent.
 

greenskeeper

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Blown head gaskets are extremely rare on a 7.3

However, I’ve seen head gaskets on turbocharged engines only show signs of leakage while under boost. In other words, idle or drive gently and it would hold. Drive it under boost and white smoke or coolant loss would occur. Is the smoke dependent on engine load?

Do you have a video of the volume of water coming out the oil pan? A steady stream in my opinion would indicate an oil cooler failure over a head gasket.
 

Kraig

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I did not take photo of the stream but, as best as j can explain it, I'd say an 1/8 diameter stream of water continuously running out while degas pressurized.
I also have a video of it running with valve covers off. It looks pretty bad ie lots of smoke so afraid of what that means. I don't know how to post a video anyway.
Here are some stills from the video

As far as a bad oil cooler like I said I swapped another known good one and it behaved identically. I'm also told that even if I reseal it it may still be bad so I'm at a loss of what to do short of spending a fortune on a brand new assembled oil cooler. Is that what I should do? If there is an issue though it has to be cracked housing ends or Orings because I pressure tested the shell of the cooler and it is not leaking.
 

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Kraig

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I wonder if it’s such a slight coolant leak that the oil (over 200 degrees) is causing it to steam into the ventilation of the engine.
Ok, reading through the whole thread again I have a new hypothesis.

**Please don't think this is my idea but something just clicked as in my head and finally made sense to me.**

Ok let's say I have a cracked cup, blown Orings on one injector. That makes the coolant leak around the injector, run down into the oil return in the head (under valve cover) and go straight into the engine. I say this is not original ad I'm sure someone has already mentioned this scenario but it just clicked for me. That would explain the sludgy oil as the oil temp made the coolant boil once it went back to atmospheric pressure causing the sludge buildup in the intake via the CCV. Also the "coolanty" oil could make the injectors behave strangely, intermittently.
Also if I had a bad oring and it dumped mostly fuel into the oil that would account for weird non coolant liquid that drained out of the oil pan with the oil as the coolant loss could have just been evaporating with the heat of the running engine.
And when i pressurized the system I could have made a slight leak worse thereby seeming like a much worse problem.
 
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