Milky Oil... Confused

[X24]

I guess this is where I should post this...

Friday night, my neighbor and I put in his just rebuilt motor in his race car. Its a chevy 350 and was bored out to .60 over during the rebuild. The week before it blew up because something happened in the heads and caused some of the valves to break. Anyway, we put the engine in and everything went smooth. We let it run for a while and timed it and made some carborator adjustments. After that we changed the oil just to get anything out that shouldnt be in there. Saturday was race day. We went to the track and he went out for some warmup laps. He came in and we checked for leaks. We noticed some oil coming out of one of the valve covers. We took it off and the oil was all milky. First thing we did was check the water level and it was where it was the night before. Now we dont know what it is. We adjusted the valve cover gasket and put the cover back on. It ran great the rest of the day.

I know milky oil means water but we werent missing any water. Is this something that normally happens when you rebuild an engine? We didnt rebuild it, his friend did and he is know for building great race car motors. It had plenty of power and the oil pressure was about 90 at the end of the straightaways. Everything seems normal. Anyone know whats up with the oil???

 

[jimbo74]

maybe it injested something during the rebuild... like was in a damp environment or something like extremee temperature changes that cuased condensation

EDIT: another thought... maybe he used an assembly lube

 

[rydinhigh]

Milky oil could also mean a bad head gasket. Was the head tourqued to spec? what kind of head gasket was used?

 

[X24]

Jim, he did use an oily lube when putting the rods in. Other than that nothing out of the ordinary that I noticed. As for the environment, it was built in a shop with nothing but engines, oil, tools and other race cars. All of the parts used were mostly Manley and other top of the line stuff. Everything was torqued correctly. This is all this guy does so the only thing I can think of is maybe when the engine blew it cracked a head or the block and maybe it was so small that he looked it over while milling the heads and redoing the block. I guess we'll just change the oil and run it again next week. Thats the last week so if it happens again, we will have a winter project.

 

[aldive]

Milky oil is NOT normal after a rebuild' there is a problem somewhere.

Good luck.....

 

[X24]

Well, just got back. We took the pan off before we started it and there was no water in it at all. The oil was normal color but had some darker streaks in it. We took the valve covers off and wiped out all the milky oil that was in there. Started it up and let it run to about 160*. Took the valve covers off again and it was all back in there again. We took the breathers off and the front breather was full of this white gooey stuff, the back one was clean. The water level is good so we think it might be some oil lube that was put on the tapper things that the rods sit in. Another thing we thought of was when we changed the oil after we put the motor in, we were 2 quarts short of the penzoil so we used 2 quarts of a different brand oil. If you ask me, oil should blend together so I dont think that would cause the problem. What do you guys think?

 

[aldive]

Was this a complete rebuild?

 

[X24]

Yes. The only parts that were reused were the crank, cam, block which was bored out to 60 over, heads that were totally redone, rockers, and rods. All new bearings, pistons, valves springs, gaskets, etc.
Like I said, the guy that built it has built countless race car motors and is known for the good work that he does.

 

[aldive]

I wonder why the white gooey stuff was not removed when the block was tanked????

 

[X24]

What do you mean?

 

[aldive]

Its a standard rebuild technique.

Take a look at Dead Link Removed