water in the oilpan

john hamilton

john hamilton

Senior Member
Pretty much says it all; doesn't it? V8-60 engine overhauled a few years ago but not used. We cleaned it up and rebuilt the water pumps and accessories and it ran great. Had good oil pressure and didn't overheat.

Then I put in antifreeze. It started leaking so I checked the dipstick. Foam. It is leaking out of the little drain hole at the rear of the oilpan. It's a pretty fast leak.

Any suggestions? How do you get foam out of an engine? What's next?

It's the unit in my avatar. Thanks.
 
Let it sit and drain, the the water go's to the bottom and the oil floats on top. Next is to find the leak. G.M.
 
My 60 had a similar problem, water in oil while sitting. Did not start it, pulled engine, found bad head gasket, cleaned carbon off top of pistons/valves, cleaned the pan and anything else I could without disassembling any rotating parts, put in all new gaskets and it has been running strong again, no leaks, for another 20 years so far.
 
We rebuilt the water pumps so, yes, the pumps have been out. The gaskets were new and came with the pumps. Did I not tighten them enough, possibly.

The engine seemed to be running fine until I put in anti-freeze which can start a leak.

Checked the cylinders and what I could see was normal so I don't think it is a head gasket. The engine may have run for 15 minutes foaming the oil.

What is that little drain hole at the rear of the oil pan with the cotter key in it. That is where the antifreeze is coming from. Thanks.
 
john hamilton said:
What is that little drain hole at the rear of the oil pan with the cotter key in it. That is where the antifreeze is coming from. Thanks.
Click to expand...

That area is where the oil leaking from the rear main would gather. Instead of letting it fill up Ford allowed for it to drain out the little hole. The cotter key is a 'jiggler' that would rattle around as you putt down the road, stopped the hole from getting plugged up.
 
It's not uncommon to need to retorque the heads several times through several heat soaks after an overhaul. There is a chance that this could be the source of the leak. Check your spark plugs for signs of coolant after turning it over. Coolant should be detectable if there is water getting into a cylinder. It may have a crack somewhere too but I'd check all the other possibilities first.
 
If you have a significant amount of water in the oil to float out the rear slinger its unlikely that this would come from a leaky head gasket. A leaky head gasket would hydro lock a cylinder before it drained past the rings. You have three sources of a volume of water leak, one being a cracked block or two an internal water pump leak. The tapered water pumps have two seals on the taper body and one at the flange. The straight pumps have a seal at the impeller base and at the flange, leaving any of these seals off or cutting them will give you chocolate milkshake oil. The third issue is with the internal rusting of the cylinder wall. I have experienced this first hand, I had an engine rebuilt and everything looked fine, engine ran good, let it cool and it sat over nite came back in the moring to check the water and it was down, added a lot of water, where did water go, into the oil pan because the heating and cooling of the engine popped an internal rust pinhole in the cylinder wall. You dont have to pull the engine apart yet you have to back track what you did, first recheck the pump seals that is most likely source. If they are ok just pull the pan and fill the engine back with fluid let it set and look for an internal leak in the block.
 
Thanks, Dick. Guess the water pumps have to come back. The cylinders and plugs were fine and I did retorque the heads (they were tight) so the gasket we can write off.

Why would the water be coming out that drain for rear main overflow, though?
 
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