Today I pulled apart my intake and found splashes of (what smells like) coolant on my air filter, and also some brown sludge on my dipstick. Ackgnowledging three things here: The two problems may not be related, I may have a blown head gasket and I checked the crankcase breather valve (it was a little dirty but not clogged).

Is there any way coolant could be getting into my intake before the turbo?

 

Just did an oil change for sanity check. There was no water in the oil, the sludge seems to have collected around the dipstick. This appeared to be the case when I did the PCV replacement as well. I ran some seafoam through the oil before changing it, we'll see if that flushed out whatever was accumulating around the breather.

Still at a loss about the liquid on the top side of my air filter though, can't figure out how that is happening.

 

sucked in a liquid? There is no possible way of an engine fluid making it to the topside of your air filter because there is no route to get there, except through the intake at the fan shroud.

 

What he said ...... and to get there it would need to pass through the filter element since the intake is at the bottom of the housing.

 

If you have a radiator leak I guess that could cause coolant to get to the air filter.

Other than that, I would NOT have run seafoam in the oil before changing it. How could you tell if coolant was in there after seafoaming? Just drive 3,000 miles (or so) change the oil and see if there is any coolant in it then. It's common to get some foamy build up around the dip stick.

 

You should still be able to tell if coolant was leaking into the engine oil by color. Seafoam will thin the oil out some but it will not change it's color, coolant will.
If he thinks he might have a bad head gasket he should definitely be checking the oil at least weekly if not daily depending on how many miles you put on it. The more miles, the more often. At least until you're sure there isn't anything contaminating that engine oil.

And the other guy was correct. It's common to have some crud around the bottom of the oil fill cap or the top of the dipstick and neither is any cause for concern. If you find it on your dipstick below the oil level or it is the oil, then you worry.

If your oil starts to look like milk chocolate ...... it's trouble !!

 

Yes, now that panic mode has subsided I would agree that the seafoam was probably not the best choice, I was planning to run it on my next oil change anyhow. Lets just say I was subconsciously testing my luck today in more ways than just this.

The second pipe (not the turbo intake) connected to the clean side of the air filter box appears to be spitting fluid onto the air filter, but I really have no clue what the pipe is routed into.

 

The oil came out black, so that was a huge relief. I will be checking it daily for a bit to see what comes of it, going to be putting on a couple thousand kms this week so I should know by the end of the week if anything has gone wrong.

 

I was going to edit that picture as I notice it's labeled "Oil in coolant" but then again, it might be more coolant than oil in that picture !!

 

Is it the tube at the base of the air filter housing that run towards the radiator ??

 

Yep thats the one, it runs into something that looks like an electric pump but a quick skim of my haynes manual isn't providing any clues.