white color in oil
 

hey guys l changed my oil yesterday and today l went out to check the oil level.l saw some white foam on the dipstick and some water looking bubble all the way up on the dipstick.what could be the problem

Is the oil soupy?
do you have any oil on the coolant?

Have you washed your engine lately?

no its not that soapy.just a lil bit white thing on the dipstick. l have not check in the coolant yet. if there is oil in the coolant what does that tell me?

Nothing to worry about. Likely just a little condensation on the dip stick. Did you change the oil yourself or have someone else do it?

I suggest you drive the car for 30 minutes and check the stick after it has had the chance to burn off any condensation. If it's still foamy after that and you are real concerned about it, you could drain the oil in a clean pan and see what it looks like. If it's milky, whitish, then get it check out.

the coolant has no oil in it. and l drove it for 30 minutes and do not see the foam anymore.l think l let too much air when l took the plug out to drain the oil wanting everything to come out.

l changed the oil myself

+1 with RS
Condensation in your dip stick tube is common... But if you are driving it for a while and you pull the stick and it comes out milky like coolant mixed then you have an issue.

What he said (and Matty) !!

It's just condensation from the by products of the combustion process and the natural condensation of the air inside the engine heating and cooling as the engine heats up and cools down when you shut it off.

As long as it's only on the sides of the stick and not the area where you actually check the level at the end it's ok. What to worry about is if you see cloudy oil on the end of the dipstick where you're trying to read the level as that is where you'd see emulsified oil and water.

If your oil itself ever looks a little like it's foamy or the inside of a Milky Way bar it's time to park it :eek: That's the sign you have a headgasket leaking. That or you start to see an oil film floating on top of the coolant reservoir. It can leak either way but coolant into the oil is the one that can kill your bearings. If it seems the condensation is excessive then it might be time to replace the PCV system and if it's a turbo, clean the PTC valve on the intake tube just in front of the turbo. There are a lot of posts on checking the PCV system and one clue is with the engine running look for smoke coming out the oil dipstick tube with the stick removed and engine up to temp idling.

It's good that you're concerned but it sounds like you're good to go !!

Drive it like ya stole it !!

The picture is just in case you haven't had a Milky Way bar. If you ever see the oil in your dipstick look like that from side to side you're in trouble :eek:

It's nothing you did. All engines have air in them, that's how combustion happens. If you take any piece of metal, heat it up to 200 degrees, leave it outside to cool off over night, the next morning, it will likely have some moisture on it.

Just a little bit of moisture that builds and burns off all the time. It's good that you change your own oil, you will see when something goes wrong. Leave the plug out for an hour if you want, it doesn't matter. One thing to do when you change it would be to fill the oil filter with oil before you screw it on.

The bad thing about having it changed somewhere else is that they often drian the oil directly into their tank system and never look at it to see if it's discolored or has something mixed in it. When you drain it into a pan you get to inspect it yourself. Just like you do when you leave a pop in the toilet. :p

That is a trick to help the engine build oil pressure sooner so you aren't waiting on the filter to fill up while your bearings have a crankshaft spinning against them at 1500 RPM on a cold start :eek:

yea l see a lil bit of the milk color like it is above on the tip of the dipstick but very little.l see no oil in the coolant nor the pcv clogged. l changed the pcv like four months ago and it doesnt smoke through the dipstick anymore.the oil doesnt look like it is in the picture above.

Good.

@ Kiss: I alway thought that the oil filter was the last stop before the oil pan. Heck I don't know. I use to do it hit and miss but have decided to do it every time now.

You are a funny guy ;)

The filter is the first step after the pump. You have to remember that the oil through the filter is under pressure and the oil that lubricates the engine just falls back to the pan by gravity once used.
Most people don't have a clue and just spin on a filter and let it go. At least you've been doing a little above and beyond once in a while. I've never watched the guys at the fast lubes but since it's the guy underneath that spins it on and the guy up top with the metered hose that fills it you're getting a dry filter at the (choke, choke) professionals :eek:

Never mind the car they pushed over to our shop where the kid pulled the timing cover port on the manual transmission bell housing and pumped in however many quarts of gear lube after doing a transmission drain. He dumped that on top of the CLUTCH DISC !! Oh my. Pushed it over because with all that gear lube on the clutch it wouldn't move on it's own. Just can't bring myself to let anyone else do my oil changes but as I get older it gets harder and harder to get back up from under the car :D

I was watching a guy change the oil on my 740 one day and told him that he had to get the filter on from the bottom and he said "it will go on from the top, watch this". Well, it did go on after he destroyed the oil sensor and wires going to it. As soon as I pulled out I poped the hood and motioned for his manager to come see what he had done. That only cost them $160. As if I needed something else to do the day before I left town.

I had the same problem after replacing my PCV system. I did two things to solve the issue.

I added a second catch canister between the flame trap and the PCV canister. This prevents oil from building up in the PCV system and gives a way to breathe some fresh air while preventing all of that blow by from getting sucked into the intake. The oil blow-by is what caused the rough-running problem in the first place (gums up the intake runners, ruins spark plugs, clogs PCV). I bought a cheapo catch can on ebay for $18 shipped.

That wasn't the only thing I had to do to solve the problem though. Apparently the little o-ring at the bottom of the dipstick tube got smashed up when I pulled the intake manifold off the car. I developed a small oil leak here, and because it's under the car, water was getting in on wet/rainy days. The replacement o-ring ran me $7 shipped.

Hope that helps!

Thymighty ... good info.

Any chance you can post a photo of how/where you cut in that catch can ??

Sure, I can get one tonight.
I kind of wish I had installed it while I was doing the PCV repair. I would have installed it on the line form the top of the PCV canister to the flame trap. It looks a little ghetto as is, but it definitely works.
I didn't feel like pulling the intake manifold again, so I put a T-fitting on the line from the top of the crank case and ran a line to the catch can. From the catch can, I ran a line back to the flame trap.
I mounted the secondary canister to the upper motor mount so that I could drain it easily. It captures about an ounce of dirty water after an hour of driving. The car runs a lot smoother, and my intake isn't getting gummed up with blow-by anymore.

Gabe (gilber33) is the man when it comes to the catch can, he has a nice write up some place here... Let me see if I can find it..:p

One thing to watch with the catch can is that your inake and out ports are a larger diameter as to not increase pressure.

EDIT:: Here is one of this posts showing the catch can install, its 20 pages but has alot of pics..
https://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-...-teaser-48690/

Sorry I didn't get a picture, we had some rain last night.
I have a bit of a different situation than gilber33, as my 850 is n/a. Mine definitely doesn't look as pretty as his. You are pretty much forced to use a larger diameter hose on the flame trap (out port), as the connection is nearly 1/2" in diameter.

I just don't see the need for a catch can in a N/A model. The flame trap gets the most service on that system. I'd guess the PCV system could go twice as long as the turbo cars. One good service of the system (replacement) and you'll never have to see it again. What's the chances of these cars being around another 5 years?