3306 sludge on dipstick

[oarwhat]

Checking the oil I found a coating of sludge. Pulled the fill plug and found a small amount there. Hard to describe. like whipped oil,very light, foamy? Ideas? Oil is nice and black. Anti freeze is clean.

 

[RBMcCloskey]

Check the water level in the radiator. It sounds like a mixture of water and oil. How was the oil level?

 

[rmllarue91]

Oil cooler water pump or orings on liners unless you have a lot of white smoke on start up could be head / head gasket. Oil cooler and water pump easy to change / rebuild.

 

[Nige]

Condensation in it somewhere. Whether that is from coolant in the oil or another reason is open to question.

 

[kshansen]

Not always but most of the time if it was a cooler leak there would be a oil slick in the top of radiator.

If water pump seal was to leak it should show out the "weep hole" between the water and oil seals. Key word is should! Seems that mud wasps and other insects love to plug up those weep holes just to be nasty! Sometimes you can get lucky and poke around with a wire and open up the weep hole. Or if there is any sign of dampness in that area I would tend to suspect the water seal.

One question would be is this engine run on a regular basis and run long enough to get it good and warmed up? If it's been sitting for weeks or months this could just be condensation.

One test that might make some squeamish that I would do is the "taste test". Just put a little of the slime on a finger and touch to the tip of tongue. I know YUCK! But if it has a sweet taste it is coolant. If just a oily wet taste could be the condensation.

 

[Delmer]

That's guaranteed to happen in the cold if you don't run the engine long enough to warm up, at least any dirty old engine with at least a little blowby. Loosen the oil drain plug until you get a several drops out, if it's water based then you can figure out if it's antifreeze or water pretty easy. If you don't want to taste the sludge, you could try the sizzle test, drop it on a hot metal surface, you know it will sizzle from the water, you're interested in if it smells sweet or not. An SOS sample is pretty cheap also.

 

[oarwhat]

Thanks Guys all great ideas.

Could be condensation (I hope it is. It's the easiest one) It's used for plowing so it sits all summer. The guys that run it for me don't run it like
I do. And I ran it hard last night. I've never seen it before in my other loaders though.

Anti freeze is full and no oil on top. Engine oil was down so no major antifreeze leaks. I never thought of the water pump. I'll have to look at the weep hole. No white smoke.

One more thing I forgot we flushed the antifreeze this fall It was full of rust I've never seen that much rust in anti freeze before. I think I'll sample the oil and see what that says. I'll let you know! Thanks Again Randy

 

[Nige]

If you flushed out a lot of rust when you drained the antifreeze then IMHO you should really think about a change to ELC as a coolant. You could forget about corrosion with that in the cooling system.

 

[kshansen]

If you don't want to taste the sludge, you could try the sizzle test, drop it on a hot metal surface, you know it will sizzle from the water, you're interested in if it smells sweet or not. An SOS sample is pretty cheap also.

That works too! And if your not sure what to be smelling for just try a couple drops out of the radiator, hard to mistake that smell.

 

[oarwhat]

I don't mind the taste test but I cleaned them off so there isn't any. I'll test the oil in the next day or so. Thanks again

 

[Delmer]

Did you check for water at the drain plug? That sludge will most likely be coating the underside of the top of the valve cover also, if you have any easy access to that to get a foam sample.

The foamy condensate collects on the parts of the engine that stick out and don't get as hot or as much airflow as the main block. A solid fan drive (no clutch) keeps those places cold even though the engine is hot. Of course, non of that tells a thing about whether it's water or coolant, just that water/sludge there is normal in those circumstances.

 

[oarwhat]

I haven't been back to the machine yet. I can try the drain plug. I own three of these 980B's and used to use 2 988's and I've never seen sludge.Even during record cold temperatures. I've only owned this one for two winters. Last winter here wasn't much of a winter. Like I said I ran as hard as it's been run since we bought it so I might have baked out some water.

 

[oarwhat]

So I checked the drain plug last week and no water came out. I just got the oil test back and it's ok. It's an oil machine but I just happened to test the oil 4/2015. A the values are almost the same. Except Boron now shows up at 16 and Molybdenum at 24. Magnesium went from 159 to 495. I don't think those numbers mean much. So it must have been some condensation. Thanks for the help Randy

 

[kshansen]

That's a 3306 in the 980 B right? Have you checked out the crankcase breather and the tube down the side of the block to make sure it is venting right?

 

[oarwhat]

That's a 3306 in the 980 B right? Have you checked out the crankcase breather and the tube down the side of the block to make sure it is venting right?

I'll check that out thanks