Oil in coolant - Oil cooler or head gasket?

[Splashonda]

Hey everyone!

I have a 1986 Honda Accord 2.0i (A20A4 engine) with 175k km (110k miles). Manual transmission. I have it since August 2014 and ran it during 6000km without any problems. But a few weeks ago I noticed a sudden oil consumption (the car never burned any oil or coolant). Since it doesn't smoke or leak, I opened the radiator cap and yes, it had some brown oil cream coating the inners of the radiator...

I added about 1l (1 quart) of oil to the engine to top it off, but since then the oil level remains stable again. The coolant level never changed.

Now, I think because this is a sudden problem, it may be the oil cooler gone bad. It happened to me on another Honda also. But it can also be a leaky head gasket. What do you guys think? How can I diagnose a bad oil cooler?

Thanks in advance! :cool:

[cygnus x-1]

These cars didn't come with oil coolers that I'm aware of, so most likely it's a head gasket leak.

C|

[ryan427]

Are you sure it's oil in the radiator and not rust? Any steam from the exhaust?


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[Splashonda]

My car is an euro spec A20A4, they did come with a sandwich type oil cooler, confirmed! :P

Ryan, I'm sure because the cooling system doesn't have any rust. Unbelievable, I know, but it was really well maintained. It doesn't smoke anything except hydrocarbons! :P

I'm going to remove the oil cooler in the weekend and see if it has any visible leaks and if possible test it. If it doesn't show anything, I'll change the head gasket.

[ryan427]

So what's the verdict?


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[AccordB20A]

when i had the oil cooler on my b20a fail it pumped shitloads of oil into the cooling system The car overheated fast and blew a radiator hose. Slight oil going into the coolant might just be the head gasket giving up.