4500 TBL oil in water

Jimel

New User
My 1971 4500 TBL 3 cyl. diesel has is suddenly getting water in the oil. My first thought is the head gasket. Engine runs and sounds fine with clean exhaust (except at start-up now when it is steamy for a few minutes). I don't have a compression gauge (yet). I am hoping someone can suggest some other, much easier to fix, cause of the problem.
I changed the oil when I noticed the problem and have not run it since.
Any ideas appreciated. Thank, Jim.
 
Thanks Shaun. It will be a bit before I can start this repair but will do what you suggest first.
 
Unfortunately, water in the oil on these usually ends up being a cavitated cylinder wall. Requires a full teardown, bore oversize, and sleeve back to standard. Not what you wanted to hear, I'm sure...
 
My first thought is cavitation, not a head gasket. Slim chance it's soft plugs in the head. If I were a betting man, I'd say 90% chance it's a pinhole, 9% chance it's soft plugs, and 1% chance it's a head gasket. I've worked on too many Fords to think otherwise.

Sorry for the bad news.
 
Thank you, I appreciate these suggestions, as discouraging as they are. Several years ago I had to remove the engine and replace the crankshaft. Pretty sure I don't have the energy to face that again!
 
If it makes you feel any better, I'll revise my predictions to 80% cavitation, 10% cylinder head soft plugs, or 10% head gasket. The reason why I raised the head gasket odds is because if your 4500 is an early model with the thin head gasket, that slightly increases the odds that it could actually be the gasket. That said, I can't remember the last time I worked on a Ford where the head gasket was the cause of water in the oil.
 
I don't think you want to use that Hard Block stuff. It is designed for drag racers who need maximum cylinder wall stiffness in the quarter mile, not someone like you who has a hole to plug up.

Most cavitation holes are approximately halfway up the cylinder wall. Do you really want to cover up half the cooling wall length of the cylinder?

Stated another way, your pistons could very well seize up if the engine is worked hard.
 
(quoted from post at 07:47:19 10/29/19)
This one should work.

http://www.hardblok.com/

To be clear, I was referring to the link working in answer to the question of "What is hard block?". I would not consider using that product in an engine, other than in drag racing applications as it was intended for, stiffening engines, not plugging leaks.
 
How far up did he fill it? You'd have to fill the water jacket at least half full, if not more, to cover most cavitation holes. If you do that, it will overheat the cylinder walls and seize pistons.
 

Sounds like a cavitation hole in a cylinder, the only sure fix is to have the block sleeved, but that's a lot of work and pricy.
You can try some of the block sealers on the market to see if they'll provide a temporary or long term patch to the problem.
Blue Devil, Bar's, K&W are some that come to mind, also sodium silicate (liquid glass) is a old favorite.
 
I think most of the pin holes were at the bottom of the water jacket at the bore, so it would only take a inch of hard block to seal it up,
 
If the holes were at the bottom, that's rust, not cavitation. Cavitation almost always occurs near the middle of the cylinder wall due to wall vibration.
 

DT466 I rebuilt last month had a pin hole 1/3 of the way up from the bottom, when we pulled the liners there were pits from 1/4 way up to 3/4's of the way up.
Hard block would be ok for a rusted out water jacket at the bottom of the block but I wouldn't want to fill more 1/2" thick.
Had a Ford 5000 with rust hole in the bottom of the block years ago, poured in 1/2" of epoxy resin, tractor was sold 3 years later not leaking.
 

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