motor oil in coolant?

[2002z28]

hello, I have never posted on here before but have been looking one here for a while. I was wondering if any body has had this problem. I was changing my coolant today and noticed what looks to be oil in the coolant tank. I drained the radiator and replaced the thermostat. The coolant draining from the engine and radiator looked ok but I found alittle oil in the coolant tank. When I refilled the radiator and ran the engine there was specks of oil floating in the top of the radiator. I have owned the car since 2005 and it had 35,000 miles on the car. It now has 46,000 and I have never had any previous problem. I also flushed out the dexcool when I purchased the car and put green coolant in. engine runs fine. I also changed the oil today and there was no coolant in it. any advise would be great.

[pajeff02]

Does your car have the power steering cooler in the upper radiator hose? I am not certain which models other than the WS6 that run that.

[2002z28]

I just looked and yes it does.

[tatertot91]

Chances are you have a bad power steering cooler like Jeff said. Most people remove the factory PS cooler all together as it really isn't that effective, you can go with an aftermarket PS cooler and be much better off or replace the existing one.

[pajeff02]

Bingo. If you look around the site you will see that there have been lots of complaints about those coolers. I will be removing ours soon and replacing it with a small tube and fin Derale cooler. The fact of your recent coolant system flush should be all that was needed so no worries unless you continue to drive the car with the leaking cooler -- assuming that it is in fact the issue.

[2002z28]

thanks for the info. I will check on that. thanks

[pajeff02]

Easiest check would be to remove the cooler from the car and immerse it in a bucket of water with a sections of hose on the P/S fluid inlets and outlets. Hit it with some air pressure -- no more than 15-18 p.s.i. -- and see if you have bubbles coming out the the ends where the upper radiator hose attaches.

[Ls_won]

are you running dexcool? i know it can become discolored..

[2002z28]

no dexcool- flushed that out in 2005. I did disconnect the power steering hose going to the cooler and by-passed it. I have ran the car for a couple of weeks now and so far no oil floating in the radiator yet. I hope the powersteering cooler is bad. I will buy a upper radiator hose w/out the cooler.

[Ls_won]

Sounds like the powersteering cooler. good deal man. my B4c had it too, but it never leaked!