Possible bad head gasket? Confused. Topic is solved

[Gtin]

Hey guys, I own a 98 NA v70. A little history I had a head gasket and valve done something like 5-7k miles ago (currently around 255k) which was actually about 2 years ago now, had some more troubles out of it after head job due to sitting before head job. Got them sorted out a few months ago and it did overheat a couple of times before I figured out that my new coolant leak was the heater core, I shut it off each time and didn't run it in the red. But it did overheat.

Anyway I had no head gasket related symptoms at all for the time the car has been back on the road until about a week ago when I noticed a nice foamy white substance on the dipstick. admittedly i ran this oil nearly double it's lifespan due to not having the money to change it. So I changed it and I'm now getting a lot of blowby and milky oil on my dipstick. I'm losing coolant somewhere but haven't found a leak yet. Obvious signs of a head gasket failing.

Here's what doesn't make sense to me

1. There's no loss of power at all that I can feel, it doesn't drive different at all

2. It does not overheat, I can sit at idle for hours or blaze down the road and it stays at a decent temperature.

3. Theres none of the milky oil that's on the dipstick on the inside of my oil cap, none at all

4. It does not smoke steadily. It smokes a bit when you start it on a cold morning like normal, but once it's warmed up there's no smoke, but if I warm it up and then shut it off long enough for the engine to cool a bit, say 30-40 minutes, I'll give a HUGE amount of smoke but in 20 seconds or less were back to no smoke.

5. This one has me really confused, I drained out a small bit of oil to look at it, and it doesn't look milky at all. I had the car warmed up from driving it home and after being home about 10 minutes I started it back up and pulled it around to the garage, so any water should have been stirred up and mixed with the oil. What I got just looks like oil, I've attached a picture.

Sorry for the long post, but what do you guys think? Head gasket? If so I would guess it's a small leak and I'm gonna try some blue devil miracle in a can because I can't afford to pay for a head gasket let alone the labor right now and I need a car on the road for work.

[ZionXIX]

My 2 cents may be unrelated but here's my experience. I have had the foamy stuff on the dipstick in the past. It really freaked me out to the point where I stopped driving the car and had it towed to an independent Volvo mechanic to inspect for Coolant contaminated oil. He couldn't find anything wrong with it, I have only seen it happen a couple more times since. I believe it happens more often than I realize. Its really bizarre and I don't understand why its happening. My mechanics theory is that slight amounts of moisture are being vaporized in the crankcase from engine heat and make their way out through the dipstick since that is the direction all of my blow-by gases are headed, but he could never find evidence of coolant mixing with oil during oil changes. Personally my theory is that the blow-by gases getting into the crankcase are able to carry some moisture with them and it shows up as the foamy stuff on the dipstick. I could be totally wrong but that's my theory until someone slaps me straight.

I know I have tons of blow-by because I get smoke out of the dipstick even after a complete PCV change and cleaning complete with the five finger glove salute from the top of the engine. Its honestly probably time for me to upgrade the PCV hose to something bigger to accommodate said blow-by gases. I have never had a head gasket changed but I have overheated once, badly. My electric fan broke in heavy traffic and I didn't notice until there was steam coming out from under the the hood. It was a complete boil over, if there is a region beyond the red zone I was way passed that. All we did was change the fan, temperature sensors,and thermostat. I didnt blow a head gasket and have never had another problem with cooling besides a leaky heater core.

Years later I had white smoke in the exhaust that smelled quite bitter. Going down the highway I would periodically release a "007" style smoke screen that would throw off even my most persistent enemies. Sometimes I would be sitting in line at the drive through and it would randomly start smoking. Turned out to be an oil leak in the turbo. I got the turbo replaced and finally burned off all the residue oil out of the exhaust.

I hope this helps somewhat.

[abscate]

I think the decision tree on a low budg et is between


1 doing nothing, drive it gingerly and carefully and change your own oil often. Check it every week at least and watch the rate of cooling drop


2 try the coolant sealer product (we do have one with which people have had success here) if (1) isn't working for you.


If you buy your oil from FCP it has a lifetime warranty, #smile

If you need this car long term you have to take care of it, it's a false economy to skimp on maintenance. You will quickly get to repairs in the $x000s

[erikv11]

On your point (4), what color is the smoke? When was the PCV last serviced, and was the drain port into the block ever cleaned out?

If you drive the car mainly only short distances, then a milky-oil dipstick during winter months especially, is totally normal. It comes from moisture condensation, and the engine not getting hot enough to evaporate it off. A clogged PCV will make it worse.

Could that be what's going on? Take a pic of the milky dipstick and post it here.

[shaker_chi]

Just curious about your comment " had some more troubles out of it after head job due to sitting before head job" What happened after the car was sitting?

[Gtin]

On your point (4), what color is the smoke? When was the PCV last serviced, and was the drain port into the block ever cleaned out?

If you drive the car mainly only short distances, then a milky-oil dipstick during winter months especially, is totally normal. It comes from moisture condensation, and the engine not getting hot enough to evaporate it off. A clogged PCV will make it worse.

Could that be what's going on? Take a pic of the milky dipstick and post it here.

The smoke is white, I'll try to get a video of a cold start vs when it smokes today, I replaced the pcv valve after the head job due to a fair amount of blowby and a check engine code but when i got it Apart I found several cracked hoses so I figured that was the problem, the drain port was not cleaned so you may be on to something there.

This has started happening since I haven't been making nearly 2 hour trips at least twice a week in it due to a lack of $$. it has been up to regular operating temps nearly every time I drive it but the longest trip has been about 15 miles with the average being under 10

[Gtin]

Just curious about your comment " had some more troubles out of it after head job due to sitting before head job" What happened after the car was sitting?

Well when I got it back from the head job it wasn't idling right and had nearly no power most of the time, I thought maybe bad gas, ran it down and ran another half a tank through it as well as injector cleaner. When that didn't work I ran engine codes and got one for a MAF and one for the PCV valve. It sat for another winter before I got the time and money for a pcv valve, I replaced both and it still didn't run or idle right, around this time was when I noticed my heater core was also bad and decided to ignore it until I had the car running so I searched for vacuum leaks until I was blue in the face and couldn't fix it, it sat for most of the summer before it occurred to me that the idle and lack of power might not be related so while I was supposed to be doing an engine swap on my Saturn (god rest it's soul) instead I was crawling under the Volvo, replaced the fuel filter and pump and she ran right but still idled at 1500rpm, good enough for me I bypassed the heater core and put it on the road, recently when It got cold I fixed the heater core in a way most people wouldn't approve of. It still has the idle problem, I cleaned the iac valve and I'm convinced it's trying to do something because the idle changes if I unplug it. I think the high idle is a bad seal around the intake butterfly and it still drives good so I haven't fixed that yet.

So in short I paid to have a head job and radiator done, could have done the radiator myself but the buddy who did it didn't charge my labor to drop it in and it was already at his house. And then since then ive installed fresh plugs and wires, a MAF sensor, pcv valve, fuel filter, fuel pump, and a heater core.

[erikv11]

Yeah, cracked PCV hoses is typical, they all have to be replaced. There is no PCV valve on these cars, which part did you install? A clogged PCV can push episodes of oil in that will make clouds of blue smoke, but not white.

10-15 miles is not very far, that could definitely make milky dipstick. Post a pic of the dipstick if you get a chance. Here's one example of clogged PCV and short trips, but it can look different:

[Gtin]

Sorry guys I got this picture earlier but didn't get a chance to post until now. This is what my dipstick looked like this morning. Sometimes it's worse, there was more on it later but I didn't get a picture of that, also sorry if it's hard to see in the first picture, I didn't think about putting something a little less busy behind it.

[Gtin]

Yeah, cracked PCV hoses is typical, they all have to be replaced. There is no PCV valve on these cars, which part did you install? A clogged PCV can push episodes of oil in that will make clouds of blue smoke, but not white.

10-15 miles is not very far, that could definitely make milky dipstick. Post a pic of the dipstick if you get a chance. Here's one example of clogged PCV and short trips, but it can look different:

I replaced the black box under the intake manifold and the hoses running to it. As for the smoke I thought I saw a blue tint to it today but my girlfriend said it was white so maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me.