Problem Diagnosis - Potential Blown Headgasket? Pic Included

[PSIKO]

Hi all,

Yesterday morning I checked the coolant and it had some brown discolouration (see pic).

I have drained the radiator and flushed it out with water.

A large amount of this stuff came out.

Whilst bleeding the coolant, more brown stuff came out.

I closed it off and revved the engine, where upon bits were coming up through the radiator.

I drove the car around for roughly 30-40 minutes, and re-checked when cool. There was minimal brown stuff inside the radiator (pretty much as much as you can see in the pic).

Notes on old mate 'brown stuff':

- It floats

- I couldn't work out the smell, it didn't smell like oil. I run e85 so I'm not sure whether it could be that.

- It has a very silky feel to it

Other notes:

There's no condensation or coolant coming through the exhaust

The oil level did not seem to drop at all, nor has it dropped over the last month

Any help or opinions would be greatly appreciated!

Pic: http://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af34/Godsillah/DSC03579_zpsd7bbd9a2.jpg

[Hadouken]

That looks like rust more than oil. Using tap water rusts your cooling system.

Check the underside of your oil filler cap for milky substance

[negativecamber]

What hadouken said. Highly doubt head gasket.

[ARTZ]

..

what i would do

get some radiator flush..run it through the system as per instructions with heater on.....drain....

disconnect top radiator hose and put a hose in the top of the radiator...run the engine with heater on so water form the hose flushes through and drains onto ground from disconnected hose.......do this till water looks fresh....could take a while...

then fill with coolant and drive....if problem persists you may have another issue

[PSIKO]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah no milky fluid under oil cap

However I wouldn't have thought rusty fluids would either float or have a silky feel to it?

[ARTZ]

just flush the system first mate and go from there

[Sinista32]

Coolant (antifreeze/antiboil) can/should feel silky/oily due to Propylene Glycol and it's viscosity

[PSIKO]

Awesome, this is good news - cheers all for the help, does indeed just look like left over gunk/residue from a previously blocked radiator!

[negativecamber]

Mate on facebook posted a pic on inside a radiator that had had different types of coolant mixed. It had a whole wax/jelly layer. Weird things can happen.

[negativecamber]

He is probably a member on here but I'll show his pic.