antifreeze in oil

[Anonymous-0]

VAC Case has antifreeze in oil, (about a quart in 12 hours). Pulled the head to install new head gasket and found a hairline crack between the two cylinders closest to the rear of the motor. Everything else looks fine. could this even be the problem? The Gasket always seeped oil onto the side of the engine although it was a small amount over a year or so. Also I had put the red antifreeze in it about 4 years ago and have heard recently that it eats up gasket material and O-Rings. I was thiking of grinding out and J.B. welding the crack. Any other suggestions? Thanks, Todd

 

[bradley martin]

You will be wasting your time JB welding the crack!! It will not stand up to the compression pressure, heat and vibration.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Many engines have cracks between the sleeves at the top of the block. You better pull the pan and see if the seals are leaking. Forget the J-B weld idea.

 

[Gene Dotson]

A quart in 12 hours is a lot of leakage for a head gasket, unless it blew out a whole section. History of leakage indicates the head and block surfaces are not true and should be machined. Has this engine been frozen? The crack between the top of the cylinders is best left alone as the head gasket and sleeve will seal it. If however the bottom web is cracked, this makes a direct path from water jacket to the oil pan and must be repaired or replace the block, no shortcut here... Gene

 

[Howard H.]

I agree that JB Weld is a short term patch, but it can hold up.

I was irrigating corn with a 534 cubic inch V8 Ford truck motor one season - with about a month to go, it blew the head gasket between the two center cylinders on one bank.

I found that the heat had "raised" a reddish area on the block itself about an inch long and 1/32 of an inch high between the cylinders. It was so hard a file would not even scratch it.

Desperate, I tried using a belt sander to smooth it down. As soon as I put the sander to it - it "poofed" into dust and left a very shallow depression instead of a raised area!

I was desperate and didn't have a spare engine big enough to pull that well, so I cleaned everything up very well, put some JB weld on it and slightly snugged the head bolts down. I let it set overnight and then torqued them down fully.

I was amazed, but it finished out the season with no problem running 24x7 at full power.

Howard

 

[Anonymous-0]

Somehow, many years ago, I forgot to drain our old VAC, and it froze with water in it. We discovered that it had happened when it wouldn't hold water anymore. There was a split in the bottom of the radiator, which had to be fixed by a radiator shop and there was some water in the oil pan. The tractor would run, but sounded like it might have a blown head gasket. When I took the head off, the whole top of the block was cracked between the cylinders, and we thought the engine was ruined. But I wanted to try to fix it, so I got a new head gasket and heavily coated it with aluminum paint--4 or 5 coats, as an extra sealant. Then I used the gasket to reinstall the head, torqued it carefully, reassembled the rest of it and started it. Without any water in it, I only ran it a couple of minutes, but got the engine fairly warm. It sounded just fine. Then I retorqued the head and finished putting it back together. I filled the cooling system with water, but it still was leaking some into the oil. I added a big package of heavy duty stop leak. The water level stabilized and after an oil change, I no longer saw evidence of moisture in the oil, so I drained the water and replaced it with antifreeze solution. We used that tractor for at least 10 years after that and never had any trouble at all with coolant leaking. And it continued to run OK.

I used water to test for leaks, since I was worried about the real bad effects of antifreeze in the oil, but that was in summer when there was no danger of it freezing again. If you have a place to put the Case inside where it could not freeze, I would try draining out all the antifreeze and using water to try to get some stop leak to do its job. Of course, the stop leak only will work if the engine is running.

I was totally amazed that our VAC engine would still work OK and that it would continue to work OK for years and years. The cracks between the cylinders were very visible and open in the deck between all of the cylinders. I never did figure out where it was leaking internally, but the stop leak found the opening/crack and blocked it successfully. Maybe I just got lucky, but maybe you might have the same experience. Good luck!