1998 Accord EX 4-door
4-cyl F23A1
automatic tranny

I've got scummy oily stuff floating to the radiator cap. Can that come from either theheadgasket or tranny cooler WITHOUT getting any antifreeze into the respective oil?

Iflushed & changed antifreeze, but within a week some more came back. I suspected that maybe I didn't flush enough to get it all out, so I used a garden hose to flush a gazillion gallons of hot water every which way. After a few days I'll see whether that didit.

The first thing I did was look at theengine oil and tranny oil on the dipsticks. It looked very good. (I know how to recognize emulsified water in the oil.)

Then I figured maybe the dipsticks aren't located real good for this, so I drained a few ounces from each drain plug. Still clean - nowater in the oil or in the ATF.

Is the ATF cooler return line connected so that it collects first in the torque converter? Is it possible to build up water in there & it doesn't show up at the tranny drain plug?

I don't see any opportunity for any other fluid to get into the antifreeze. The power steering cooler is just a loop of tubing that doesn't even go inside the radiator. What else is there?

 

Its engine oil, probably have a blown headgasket.

 

Unfortunately I have to agree... Most likely a head gasket.... have you had any overheating issues ever?

 

as for the idea of a tranny cooler leaking , it is possible but to be honest with you i have only seen 1 in many years of working on autos,,

Do a cylinder leak down test ,,

 

Never had any overheating issues. Compression test seemed good except for a flaky gauge (gotta replace that). I'lldo a leakdown test (borrow a gauge or have it done). There's no bubbles or funny coolant activity when it's running.

What confuses me isthat Idon't seeany waterleaking back into the oil too?

I really appreciate your help, guys...

 

I had head gasket on my 94EX go out. It was asubtle failure. A slow loss of coolant w/ no coolant in oil or oil in coolant. Finally noticed an occasional hard start after running, parking for a few minutes and then attempting to restart. It would start and miss for 10-15 secs before smoothing out. I pulled spark plugs and found coolant on one plug when I had the hard start and rough running. I did drive for some time before deciding it had to be the head gasket. Unless you're getting coolant in oil or overheating, I would take my time to be sure of diagnosis.

good luck

 

Keep the possibility of a cracked block in mind. That's the first thing I think of when i hear your symptoms. Seen too many of em.

 

Where do they usually crack? What can I inspect? Is there any place for the oil pump to leak into the water jacket? Or into the water pump?

I'm resurrecting this thread because I'm still not sure. I had measured compression & got 130 130 135 & 130. Pretty uniform but a little low. Then I drained the tranny oil & found absolutely no water. And the stuff in the radiator never had any red color to it. So I thought it would bethe headgasket.

I wasted a good chunk of today with the crank pulley, &I never got it off. I gave up,slacked the tensioner & took off the camshaft sprocket. I'll put the new timing belt on later.

Problem is, I don't see any real evidence the headgasket was leaking. It got too messy when I lifted the head off the block. None of the combustion chambers look like they're steam-cleaned.

There's a lot of scummy churned-up oil in thewater jacket around the cylinders. What's the best way to clean that out without getting it all over the pistons? Or should I just let it get there & clean it up after?

 

They crack internally between the pressurized oil galleys and the cooling system. To verify that is the problem we pull out the oil sender and install a fitting to put air pressure into it. If any coolant starts pushing out the radiator you verified it.

Because of the open deck design, a bad head gasket on a honda doesn't let oil into the cooling system unless its really, really bad. (to the point the head is severly warped and the ehgine is barely running)

 

I had my head cleaned, valves re-seated, new stem seals, and shaved for flatness. When assembled, the machine shop that did this work performed a pressure test to look for cracks. I once re-installed a head w/o having all this work done (particularly shaving the head) and got to re-do the job for my reward!

On my 94EX head gasket, I had some difficulty locating the leak site. I think I found the site but was never absolutely sure. However, I was sure that water was leaking into the cylinder head.

I suppose it is possible for a crack in the block between the oil and water galleries. I've never heard of any way of testing this, particularly w/o removing the engine.

I found two anamolies on my 94EX that might be true for all Accords, or could be a relic of an earlierrepair in my head.

First suprise was the center-rear head bolt was about 1" longer than the other 9 bolts. Perhaps the head bolt threads were damaged and the threads were tapped deeper to provide good threads for bolt tensioning.

The cylinder head bolts were very tight and required perhaps 500-800 ft-lbs to break loose. I pulled very hard on the end of a 3-4 feet lever arm to break them. I cleaned the bolts, chased the threads w/ a die and found second anamoly. I have a 12mm x 1.5mm tap and die, and these fit the bolts and block tapped holes perfectly. However, Honda shop manual says the bolts are 12mm x 1.25mm. Last number is the thread pitch (1.25mm/thread).

good luck