So after finally driving the truck back home from installing the new water pump I shut it off and waited a bit before checking the oil. It didn't look right, looked a bit thin, possibly watery? I attached a photo of the dipstick. If this is water on the dipstick, I'm thinking it got in there from the old pump? That thing was spraying coolant pretty bad when it went, and I had to drive it about 7 miles like that till I got home. When I removed the old pump the two bottom bolts that you are supposed to permatex had a decent amount of oil on them. I put permatex on both the top two and bottom two bolts when I installed the new water pump. And come to think of it, a few days before the old water pump really started spewing I believe the oil on the dipstick looked similar... Should I just change the oil again and see how it looks? I just changed it about a month ago, had a free 5 gallon jug of renewable lubricants biosynthetic, going to suck seeing it go to waste!
That dipstick is supposed to be for oil, not chocolate milk. Change that oil asap, and if it becomes chocolate again you've got a problem on your hands.
Oil cooler, head gasket, or cracked block are the 3 main causes of chocolate milk I believe. If you had chocolate milk before replacing the water pump, those 3 become more likely. But since you just did the waterpump, thats a possibility too, but that would only be through those 4 bolts as far as I know.
Make sure you do not drive the truck until you can get the oil changed. The emulsified oil has very poor lubrication and will damage the engine if it continues to run with it
Thanks gents. I thought I was going to be in the clear and driving my truck again, but looks like I'll be stuck with the wife's minivan for a little bit longer. I can change the oil this week. I imagine once it's changed just drive it around for a little while and then check to make sure the problem isn't continuing? I'll keep my fingers crossed...
That's what i'd do, it sucks to throw out 2 gallons of fresh oil, but just incase that's somehow leftover from your old pump it's better to try that than jump right in and tear the engine apart. You mentioned that the oil was a bit chocolately before you changed pumps, and that your oil change was pretty recent. When you did your last oil change, did you see any water or chocolate in the oil that came out?
If you drain the oil, let the truck just sit, and subsequently leak enough water into the oil pan to be sure it's not residual, I'd call that a really serious leak, probably more than is indicated in the picture. In effect, you're relying on gravity flow to move water from the cooling system to the oil pan. The water would flow much more readily with the engine running, with whatever pressure is created by the water pump. This is my opinion, which isn't necessarily right.
I'm probably going to drain the oil tomorrow after work. Then I'll let it sit for a day or so until I can get back underneath it and pull the plug and see if anything else leaked in there. This all really bummed me out, but the truck has been so reliable for the last 3 years that I have serious doubt she won't resurrect from this nightmare. I just bought two new valve cover gaskets too and was planning on installing them this weekend along with a nice engine clean so I can get a better understanding of any leakage.
The best solution here is to leave the oil drain plug out, make sure that your cooling system is full and then, using a cooling system pressure tester, pressurize your cooling system. You can watch the gauge to see how fast the needle drops. You can also watch for coolant at the drain plug. Since the coolant's under pressure, there should be some show up fairly quickly if there's much of a leak at all.
Drained the oil today and ran the coolant pressure test on the system. She held steady! I had a loose hose clamp on the upper radiator hose but that was it. I had just installed that so I just needed a couple more turns. Filled it back up with oil and then drove it home. Dipstick looked good after 25 minutes of road time. I’m going to drive about an hour tomorrow and check again to make sure the oil isn’t watery. I’m using a BioSynthetic oil from renewable lubricants, anyone ever had any experience with them?
Hard to tell from the original post photo if it's light reflecting on the normal oil or if it's actually a light color? Did it smell of diesel? That can happen too causing it to go higher on the dipstick and make it runnier. My RV's generator is dumping a bit of gas into it's oil making it fill higher in the crankcase and making it smell slightly of gasoline. Pesky onan equipment, not cheap for parts. ($180 for a carburetor!)
