rywoody

Hello,
I'm new to yotatech recently bought a 93 pickup 22re, 4x4, manual trans, with 104k miles. After reading on yotatech,I decided I wanted to do the timing chain. The truck ran fine I just wanted to do it as a precautionary measure. Anyway, start tearing apart this morning drivers-side guide is partially broken, very little rubbing on the cover. I drained the coolant and it is very dark and kind of oily. Still smells like coolant. On the other hand, engine oil looks pretty normal, not milky at all. If it were a blown head gasket I would expect the oil to be milky right? The truck appears in really good shape - 104K and from the looks of things they were easy miles. Any ideas? Maybe the PO was adding oil under the wrong cap.
Thanks,

damienpottinger

It might be too much coolant too little water mixture, non-diluted coolant is "oily" in texture. Or if it was kind of brown and sludgy, the first owner cold have mixed Toyota red coolant with "normal" green coolant, I've never seen the reaction but that could be what your seeing...

Dirt Driver

Coolant tends to darken in color and get gunky when it has gone far past the replacement interval.

If there is oil in your coolant, it would likely be floating at the top of the drain bucket. It could look like globules, an oil slick, or a milkshake. Either way it should be fairly obvious.

rywoody

One more thing. I have both the drained coolant and drained oil in clear containers (separate containers of course) and neither oil container nor coolant container appear to be separating by weight i.e., indicating mixing of oil and coolant. The color of the coolant really looks like used motor oil - brownish blackish.

edwinb4x4

How old is the radiator? Is it showing any rust deteriotion? Was this the original coolant when you boaught the truck? My suggestion, start fresh, do a full flush of your cooling system and refill with new coolant. This way if the problem occurs again then you know it's not the coolant. It's possible that the original owner did or added somthing to the cooling system that made it to react.
You mentioned that the oil is clear so I think you are OK there but if the problem is still there after the flush, you might need to replace the rad this way it's out of the way as one of the suspect.

...hope this helps..

Edit:
Since you've already changed the coolant...you might still need to flush it...

rywoody

Thanks for the help folks. After I popped off the water pump and caught the residual coolant which dripped down over the front/bottom of the oily engine, there was a definite oil slick across the top of the coolant, i.e., the slick was not evident in the coolant before the last bit poured down the engine front. Along with the responses to my problem, this has me convinced the coolant is fine, just not the green or orange color I'm used to. Thanks again.