Water In My Oil?

[GARY J]

Today I thought I would do some preventative maintainance. Replaced the serpentine belt, plug wires, plugs and did an oil change. I crawled under the car, removed the oil plug and laid there waiting for the oil to finish draining.(BTW these cars hold a lot of friggin oil) So I look over to see if it is still draining and see what appears to be water coming out of the oilpan. Let me stress the fact that it was a very SMALL amount just dripping out one drip at a time. It was also completely clear with no green tint normally associated with coolant. As far as I know I'm not losing oil or coolant. Is there any possibility that this is water that entered the air scoop (rain, or water hose) in the hood and ran down the valve cover vent tube or is this a dreaded headgasket? Any advice would be great.

 

[treynor]

How long had you run the car before you drained the oil? I'm no expert, but I believe it's fairly common for a *small* amount of water (which is, after all, a combustion byproduct) to show up in the oil if the engine hasn't been brought up to temperature. This water will normally boil off once the oil reaches operating temperature, which may take 5-10 minutes of driving to achieve...

 

[GARY J]

Ben,
I just started the car and ran it long enough to move it over into the center of the garage. Maybe 30 sec or so. I sure hope it's not a head gasket!

 

[phiebert]

I think you would have a lot of other symptoms like loss of coolant, plug fouling, streaks down the block and a serious smell of coolant whenever the car was hot and idling if you had a coolant problem. I haven't ever heard of anyone finding a coolant leak problem first by finding a bit of moisture in the oil pan.

I'd agree with Ben, it's probably normal to find a little moisture (a few drips) in the oil if it was sitting and only started for 30 seconds. Every time I fire mine up there is a bit of steam out the exhaust which disappears after a couple minutes or so. I've heard of a lot of guys asking whether this is normal and Vipers aren't the only cars that do that.

 

[Qualitywires.com]

yeah, I would say it's just condensation if you just started it up a little then shut it down.

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

Water from combustion enters the crankcase as a vapor and is absorbed into the oil. Only if the oil has "saturated" would the water form a layer or be separated. You can check this easily - make a quarter size "pan" with some aluminum foil and heat a drop of oil with a match. If there is entrained water, it will "spatter" as the water boils off - the oil will have to get much hotter before it does anything more than smell.

Engine oil heats up much slower than the coolant. While O2 sensors go into closed loop in seconds or up to a minute, coolant will take about 10 minutes, oil temperatures with 5 quart sumps about 20 minutes. (Based on the test used by EPA for emissions and fuel economy.) 10 quart sumps with oil coolers probably take longer.

Still vote for rain water hiding somewhere that ran out when you tipped the car to get under it.