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Crappy day.... how to break the seal on LIM gasket?

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I've rinsed it all down after completing the job. It smelled fresh, not burnt. Like smelling the coolant in the bottle. I'm thinking the weap hole is pissing after the car is parked and coolant stops circulating. The only coolant that drained out during Disassembly came from removing the tensioner and coolant elbows. Nothing spilled out of the block when I removed the LIM.
 
Smell near the back of the engine came from the overflow tank despite the cap and hoses being tight. I can smell burnt coolant near the pulleys. Tomorrow Ill pull the water pump pulley off and and examine the weep holes. The grooves on the crank pulley look glazed over so I'm betting its the water pump.
 


Doesn't look like it, there was coolant on the belt from the elbow however. I may be re-doing the LIM job. I poured out the old oil into my catch pan. The synthetic oil that was in there as I was doing the job had white bubbles on the surface with an glossy sheen to it. Looks like coolant to me.

After setting the LIM the first time during dis-assembly I quickly removed it to apply a little more RTV to the joints. Service manual said a small dab the size of the pea and the RTV bottle said make a small line from LIM to block rail. The dipstick has an earthy oil smell with a bit of a sweet aftertone. I'll cut open a soda can and place it on the stove and drip the oil from the dipstick onto it, if I see bubbles I disturbed the LIM gasket when I removed and replaced the LIM to put down the RTV.
 
I hadn't torque the bolts yet, I just set it down and grabbed all the bolts from the garage to get them started before torquing them. But it's possible despite the fact that the pegs were lined up that I disrupted the gaskets and they didn't seat properly.
 
Oil sheen in the overflow tank and the dipstick + exhaust have a sweet smell to them. Picked up new gaskets on rockauto for half the auto parts store price.

Is it absolutely necessary to flush the cooling system? I've read that oil makes coolant acidic so I'm guessing yes.
 


Took a picture but wrote it off a air bubbles because I didn't really want to believe I botched the job. Now it's apparent I did so I'm going to fix it before I ruin my bearings.
 
Before you run off all worried.. let's ground you.

Coolant is held at 16psi by the cap/system.
Oil in the heads is not pressurized and dripping back to the pan.

This in itself is going to keep coolant in the oil, not the other way around. Now your transmission is a higher pressure than your coolant and it has a cooler built into the side of the radiator.. but if you mix trans and coolant.. you get a reddish mess in the cooling system and you don't have that. What you do have in the overflow is normal. Take it off..clean it good and put fresh coolant in it. Problem 1 fixed

As for the coolant in your oil. It is very common for some coolant to end up in the lifter valley etc which is why it's suggested that you flush oil through. I don't flush oil through... because after I took off the first steel pan and noticed there's 3/8 of an inch below the plug that will never drain, it's worthless to flush oil. If there's water in there...it'll go to the bottom of the pan and wait until you fire up the engine and circulate things. Once it's mixed in a bit.. say 2 min of run time.. then I drain oil and do a change. If I fire it back up and see anything on the dipstick..I do another change.

End of story.. do another oil change and I bet it's fine.
 
It's been changed twice and the coolant smell and oil in the overflow are after the most recent oil change. The valley was clean other than a bit of residual oil under the gasket. No coolant came out the block when removing the lower intake and the same goes for oil.
 


Doesn't appear you read what I wrote..

You can not get oil into the overflow based on a LIM gasket, no where in that area is oil under more pressure than the coolant.
 
Yes but coolant contaminated with oil will find its way into the overflow as expanding coolant makes its way into the overflow. This is how I found out my LIM had failed in the Buick Century. Oil in the overflow and coolant in the oil. Taking off the radiator cap yields a white foamy substance on the top of the coolant.

I'd rather spend $40 and a few more hours making sure everything is right than need a new engine down the road.
 
Soooo help me understand how the coolant got contaminated and with enough that it matters, because if you go take a tour of a JY and look in W body overflows.... you will see the same damn thing in almost every case. It's goop from lack of cleaning.
 
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