Leaky Head Gasket?
 

It appears that my head gasket needs replacing. I see fresh oil on the engine, from the head gasket on down, on the turbo side. Am I in immediate need of head gasket? What else should I be looking for? I have no idea when or if it has ever been changed. I read Peter's post on the cracked cast-iron head and am suddenly paranoid.

That was RunningTooHot's post on the cracked head. If psfred develops a cracked head anytime soon I'll be branded a jinx.

The only cracked head I have now is the one above my shoulders -- all the knowledge seems to leak out when I'm not watching!

Seriously, I'm beginning to suspect a cracked head on the Volvo -- too much white/blue smoke in the morning and disappearing coolant :(. I have to replace that last glowplug before I get too suspicious (I am NOT going to take the head off just to see!).

The MB's all seem to be fine!

Peter

About 1 qt. every 1K miles.

This barge is definitely a basket case. And even so she flies down the road and rides like a dream. Go figure...

I totally agree with Bill on this,,, except I am amazed that yall are concerned over one quart leaking in a 1,000 mile interval... Yall are way too hard to please... as long as you are putting new oil in and it does not get low... your just doing a slow oil change in between the faster and more complete one ... but one qt/ 1000 miles.. I can live with that any day... Greg

I wouldn't worry too much about it...
 

But then again, its not my car (just kidding)

You may want to look & make sure the oil is coming from the head gasket area vs. somewhere else. The pressurized oiling ports for cylinder head lubrication are not located at the side of the block/head interface.

Once I had the head off, I found that there was a quite bit of oil seeping from behind cylinder #5, where there are also the main drain-backs from the head back into the crankcase. This seeping oil can work its way down & along the parting ridge on that side of the block - this could appear as though the head gasket is leaking oil on the side of the engine, but it's not...

Was that clear or am I groggy from breathing all the solvents tonight? Maybe I just need some sleep....

RTH

My 300D's engine was CAKED in oil, it took about 7 cans of gunk and alot of water to get it off, and it was still dirty.

Its these things' nature to leak.. it would be extremely difficult to find a 617 or 616 engine that does NOT leak. Don't worry.

240D are real oil hogs.. I think its pretty normal for them to consume 1qt/500 or so miles. The 5cyl were much better at oil consumption, mine used about 1qt/3000 miles.

My 6cyl 300SDL uses about 1qt/3000 miles as well (mostly highway driving).

Thanks for the info. I'm using Mobil1 Delvac. It may leak a bit more quickly than dino.
Mostly I just want to be sure that the car is OK and that I'm not driving my way to a catastrophic prob. She is 23 years old and doing pretty well. It's amazing to consider that she may well have another 10 good years in her.

It's a bit of a mind shift from gas mentality to "diesel think." Also, PEH has told me that I worry too much. So now it's on to fixing other stuff. I wonder what I can find wrong today.

I've narrowed my oil leaks down to around the Air Filter Housing area. The one brass tube that connects to the bottom of the Housing down to the oil pan will be getting new O-rings this weekend. I also believe I have some oil going out with the exhaust that has made a funky oily sooty goop that was coming out of the down pipe. I shouldn't have that problem (or at least visibly) since I've just replaced the exhaust system. And lastly I bought a new Tube that connects the Filter Housing to the Turbo. The old one has a chunk missing from one of the lips that had some oil leaking out since the rubber ring was also messed up.


Hopefull all of those repairs should cut down on my cars ability to mark it's spot.

I don't agree that 240's are oil pigs at all! and oil is definetly cheaper than pulling the head!

I could live with a quart in 500 miles even!

The most common bus engines of all were Detroit Diesel.
The 2-stroke ones. Incredibly smooth as you might imagine, because all 8 cylinders were firing every stroke, instead of like a 4-stroke which fires every other stroke. (That doesn't sound like it makes sense...)

Their nickname was "Detroit Drippers". Very messy engine.

Whenever you see a blower on a hot rod or drag car, it was from this engine, but usually the 4 cylinder version.
They made L4, L6, V6, V8, and even stuck two V6's together to make a V12.
These engines also make the most amazing sound with no mufflers on them!
I remember running a bus route from San Jose to Santa Cruz with a good running V8, with a failing muffler and enjoyed it very much. As this highway is notorius for it's mountain ways, there were many opportunities for using the engine brake on the down hill sections, wow what a noise!
Then one day it finally happened. Yup, the muffler fell off! Holy Cow, what a marvelous din! Lost a lot of power though, but it was a fun 30 minutes!