Engine condensation in valve cover

[dave 62 pb]

How much emulsified oil would you expect to have in a valve cover after only a month of daily running , bearing in mind I have only been doing about 5 miles each way most days.
I took the valve cover off to set the valves on my 3.3 Cresta engine today now everthing has settled down and was suprised that the top of the cover had a thick coating of emulsified oil, the engine oil is still clean I changed it 2 weeks ago but for the first couple of weeks I used 15/40 diesel multigrade to flush the engine out as it had been stood for a long time .
Could it be the 15/40 oil that caused it as its a detergent oil or just that its been so damp recently and the engine as hardly had chance to warm up, there are no other signs of the head gasket leaking , I am now using 20/50 and apart from a slight misfire midrange the car is now running great , no overheating , the spark plugs are clean and all the same colour .

[roscobb]

How much emulsified oil would you expect to have in a valve cover after only a month of daily running , bearing in mind I have only been doing about 5 miles each way most days.
I took the valve cover off to set the valves on my 3.3 Cresta engine today now everthing has settled down and was suprised that the top of the cover had a thick coating of emulsified oil, the engine oil is still clean I changed it 2 weeks ago but for the first couple of weeks I used 15/40 diesel multigrade to flush the engine out as it had been stood for a long time .
Could it be the 15/40 oil that caused it as its a detergent oil or just that its been so damp recently and the engine as hardly had chance to warm up, there are no other signs of the head gasket leaking , I am now using 20/50 and apart from a slight misfire midrange the car is now running great , no overheating , the spark plugs are clean and all the same colour .

Using a thermostat? - if not there may be your answer!

[dave 62 pb]

Hi thanks for the reply , yes Iv`e got thermostat in and it seems to be working ok but as top of rad gets hot and water is circulating with no bubbles, could be worth replacing with a highter temp one , will investigate further .

Thanks Dave

[roscobb]

Why not try running with part of rad blocked off to see if higher running temperature helps the problem.

[cc41memorylane]

Is your rocker cover got a breather???? I blocked mine of amd it happened to me. if you have a breather make sure its clean.

[LazySteve]

I would say doing 5 miles each way it's just not getting hot enough.

[buick350]

Do these motors have a breather or PCV ?

[scooter]

I had a similar problem with the old Merc, I was doing 8 miles twice a day to and from work. Whilst tinkering about with it one day I noticed emulsified oil in the oil filler cap, I took a rocker cover off and that had emulsified oil aswell.

That's when the old brain starts panicking, ****, head gasket? cracked something? etc etc...

There were no other signs of trouble anywhere. I changed the oil and filter, cleaned the crap out of the top of the engine and used it to and from work again. Within a week the emulsification started again, ****!

Whilst this was going on our company restructured and as a result my place of work was now 22 miles away instead of 8. I used the Merc for the first week thinking something may go wrong but to my relief the contrary happened! It turns out that the engine was not getting warm enough to dispell the condensation build up from not warming up for long enough.

This may not be your problem but the symptoms sound identical.

[dave 62 pb]

Thanks for all the replies, The late 3.3 engine I have in now only has 1 breather on the valve cover that goes into the air filter , the old 2.6 had 1 on the valve cover that went into the inlet manifold and 1 on the side plate on the block.
When I changed the engine I used the 2.6 water pump and thermostat (a recent new one ) but the 3.3 runs cooler on the temp gauge for some reason, I`me hoping this is what the proplem is,
going to investigate today as soon as it stops raining , will also restrict the air flow on the rad as suggested.

[Smokey]

Don't forget the oil filer!