03 DF140 water in oil

[Lunchmoney]

Checked the oil and it was very milky. Pulled the oil cooler as it's a common failure and found major corrosion. One of the ports was corroded shut and an Oring blown. filled the crankcase with diesel and then drained it out a couple of times in an effort to flush out the milky oil. Installed new oil cooler, filled with 10W-40, put on the hose and cranked her up. Seemed to only be running on 3 cylinders and oil immediately turned milky again.
Drained it all out again and started tearing tearing down the engine. Pulled the intake manifold and could see the stems of the the bottom 2 valves were rusted pretty good. Removed the crankcase bolts and the 2 closest to the the rusty valves were covered in white milky oil, the other 8 bolts looked fine. Got the head off and the bottom piston chamber had water sitting in it, an ounce or so I'm guessing. That piston head was much cleaner than the other 3. The cylinder wall has surface rust on it. Head gasket didn't look to be blown out really but it's metal and hard to tell I guess.
Next step is to pull the block from the holder to get a look at that gasket.
With what I've described above, what are yawl's thoughts on how the water is getting in? Could it be just the head gasket? Engine holder gasket? Cracked head or block?
Thanks for any help.

[Lunchmoney]

Replaced oil cooler and it did the same thing. Tore engine down and when I disassembled it, I found water pooled up in the #4 cylinder and the intake valves on that cylinder were rusted pretty bad. Also, found heavy scale buildup in the head's water passages, especially towards the bottom. Other valves looked good. I had head pressure checked, glass beaded and resurfaced. Replaced the 2 rusted valves and had a valve job done on it. Had the block pressure checked, was in great shape. Engine holder plug was removed and welded over prior to me buying the boat so the engine holder looked pretty good. I took the whole thing apart and only snapped 1 bolt in the process and it was just a bolt for the water jacket on the back of the crankcase. Put it all back together with new gaskets following the factory manual to the letter and getting water in the oil again. It took running it a couple of times before it started again.
I'm about to start tearing it down again and am wondering how I can pinpoint exactly where this water is getting into the oil at? I wish there was a way I could dye the water so it would leave a mark at the spot it's leaking. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? I'm frustrated beyond belief...

[wkwarrior]

did you check the air cooler in the intake manifold. they will leak and let water in especially the bottom cylinder.

[catacom225]

water in oil

Lunchmoney,
I would suggest anyone who has an oil cooler pull it apart every year or two. Before you start pulling things apart, you need to have a good think about what you have already done.
Reading your post makes me think that you covered just about everything, so if it was me I would look at the engine holder! There are two models one is ENGINE HOLDER (DF140T:682149-,DF140Z:680234 and the other is 51110-90810-0EP HOLDER SET, the first one has a cover plate and I have read that pinholes can develop allowing water to enter

[Lunchmoney]

did you check the air cooler in the intake manifold. they will leak and let water in especially the bottom cylinder.

No, I can't say that I did. There's a water jacket cover with a gasket that I didn't remove on the inside of the intake. You're saying water could be leaking out of that jacket into the inside of the intake and getting sucked into the combustion chamber? Makes sense it would drop down to the lowest point and get pulled into the #4 combustion chamber I guess. When I tore it down last time, I had water pooled up in the bottom cylinder and those 2 intake valves were rusted... It was only running on 3 cylinders towards the end. #4 couldn't fire off with all that water in it.
Would this cause my oil to look milky? If so, you may be on to something here...

[Lunchmoney]

Lunchmoney,
I would suggest anyone who has an oil cooler pull it apart every year or two. Before you start pulling things apart, you need to have a good think about what you have already done.
Reading your post makes me think that you covered just about everything, so if it was me I would look at the engine holder! There are two models one is ENGINE HOLDER (DF140T:682149-,DF140Z:680234 and the other is 51110-90810-0EP HOLDER SET, the first one has a cover plate and I have read that pinholes can develop allowing water to enter

I have serial #372232. It's the older version that doesn't have that cover plate. I know this motor like the back of my hand lol!

[Lunchmoney]

Pulled the intake and found clean water pooled up around the intake valve port at the bottom cylinder. Evidence of water is the bottom port of the intake manifold itself. Pulled the water jacket cover off expecting lots of corrosion and perhaps a visible hole into the intake. This would likely explain my problem but it was surprisingly void of any significant corrosion and appeared solid. The hoses in and out of the jacket were free of obstruction and water should be flowing fine through it. In order to eliminate this as a potential source of water getting into the oil, I thought about just bypassing it with a nipple connecting the inlet and outlet hoses together and taking the jacket / air cooler out of the equation. Would it hurt anything to do this short term and potentially long term? I figure that water pooled up around the intake valve is resulting from either the intake or its getting pushed in there on the intake stroke when the valve opens. Am I on track here? Thanks for all opinions. Feel like I'm getting close to the problem.

[redlowrey]

To pressure test that head properly you would have had to make up a special plate to cover the exhaust ports properly, did you see them pressure test it. If there was a problem in the oil cooler it would have emptied the sump, not fill the sump with water. I would make up an adapter to pressure test the manifold, and I would think if the cooler line on the fuel rail failed it would pump fuel into the water system being double the water pressure, and all cyls would miss if it got into the rail, just disconnect it. The water sitting in the manifold could be from overlap with water sitting on the piston and being pushed out when the inlet valve opens btdc. If the engine holder was corroded it would leak water into the sump, I think you have a crack or a corrosion problem leaking water into no 4.

[dstumpe]

leaking intake cooling water jacket damage

Not to infer that you might have the same issue as I had, but it does sound similar. The motor was starting to misfire on the #4 cyclinder at idle and would take off when RPM's increased over 1500. A full disassembly showed salt water from the intake cooling water jacket was leaking into the intake and passing through the combustion process. The combined chlorides and exhaust gasses destroyed the exhaust passages and was allowing exhaust to enter the crankcase at the engine holder gasket, at full throttle it would pressurize the crankcase and blow oil out the top crankshaft seal. The salt in the gas also corroded the valves and the crankshaft as well. You would do well to at the very least, disconnect the intake manifold cooling jacket water hoses and thoroughly flush the jacket out to prevent this type of failure. I have a new DF140A now to repower after this failure and the engineers have removed this feature, along with the troublesome oil cooler (leaks caused by salt crystals displacing the o-ring seal) and also the fuel rail cooler. This tells me they knew of the potential or actual failures and have fixed it with a re-design.

[Lunchmoney]

Not to infer that you might have the same issue as I had, but it does sound similar. The motor was starting to misfire on the #4 cyclinder at idle and would take off when RPM's increased over 1500. A full disassembly showed salt water from the intake cooling water jacket was leaking into the intake and passing through the combustion process. The combined chlorides and exhaust gasses destroyed the exhaust passages and was allowing exhaust to enter the crankcase at the engine holder gasket, at full throttle it would pressurize the crankcase and blow oil out the top crankshaft seal. The salt in the gas also corroded the valves and the crankshaft as well. You would do well to at the very least, disconnect the intake manifold cooling jacket water hoses and thoroughly flush the jacket out to prevent this type of failure. I have a new DF140A now to repower after this failure and the engineers have removed this feature, along with the troublesome oil cooler (leaks caused by salt crystals displacing the o-ring seal) and also the fuel rail cooler. This tells me they knew of the potential or actual failures and have fixed it with a re-design.

After tearing it down twice, I finally found a hole in the head under the bottom exhaust valve on #4. Had to pull the valves out to find it but it was a good sized hole corroded through the exhaust port into the water jacket. Found a good deal on a brand new head that came complete with valves and cams. If you consider $1000 a good deal! People I talked to said water was getting in to the combustion chamber there and working it's way through the intake valves back into the intake port. That's why every time I pulled the intake, there was clean water pooled up in the intake port. When the intake valves open, it was getting pushed through. Was told the water was getting by the piston rings and that was turning the oil milky. This hole was about an 1/8" in diameter. It's been there a while and was letting a lot of water in. I removed the cover on the intake cooler and didn't see any obvious cracks. I filled the cavity with water and let it sit overnight. The water level didn't go down so I'm reasonably confident it's OK.
Replaced all the piston rings, had the block surfaced and honed. Replaced the main bearings as a couple had some scarring. Replaced the thrust washers for good measure. Got all that back together and torqued down last night. Going to bolt the head on tonight and install the timing chain, tensioner, etc. Hope to set it back down on the holder Saturday and finish putting it all back together. Man I sure hope that fixes it.

[WEDOCQ]

Oh man this is no fun! I went thru totally redoing my DF140 7 years ago. Like you, I learned the motor real well!
Good Luck,
Shawn

[Marcos55]

Did you get the problem solved. I have read it's not worth putting money into these motors after this happens. I pulled mine apart and found a blown gasket but also some corrosion where the gasket blew.

[Marcos55]

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[briscoe]

*** this was an incredibly old thread you added to Marcos 55. That head toast. I've seen a number of rebuilt power heads for the DF140's 02-12. Have you looked on E*ay?