Went to change oil and I saw this

[Greenman]

What was the end result here?

 

[Black88GTA]

Originally posted by: Beau
Bad oil separator will give you wisps of white smoke in your engine when you start your car, but it will go away almost immediately -- speaking from experience with the same engine as you: m62 V8 in my 540i. Not a hard fix, but time consuming. I don't think that's what you've got though. I don't see how coolant would be getting back into your oil from a bad separator... especially with enough volume to give you a milkshake like that. You most likely have a bad head gasket or a cracked head -- BMW aluminum blocks are notorious for this. If you've run hot even once, you have a high chance of having a cracked head.

When the oil separator went bad on my 840 (M60), accelerating from lights smokescreened traffic behind me so bad that nobody behind me really went anywhere until it dissipated a bit. The smoke was so thick you couldn't see through it.

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
I'll put some money on condensation from short trips. Take it for a long highway drive every once in a while.

ditto, this is very normal if you don't drive your car for extended periods of time

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: Greenman

Originally posted by: RU482
I'm sorry...but wtf is an oil separator?

New one on me as well.

In engines with high compression or that otherwise tend to experience high positive crankcase pressures (e.g. turbocharging), the PCV system often incorporates an air/oil separator. This allows oil that gets pulled into the PCV system to drain back into the sump while reducing the oil sucked into the intake charge by the PCV system.

If the PCV system starts to get clogged up, water and other contaminants can get trapped in the separator and cause issues. The separators rarely "go bad", rather they simply need to be cleaned.

ZV

When I supercharged my GTi VR6 I put a catch can inline to protect that shit from going into my Vortech v9. Funny that I just found this thread and your post cause I cleaned the catch can all of 7 hours ago, guess what? it had a fair bit of this goo and water inside

 

[radioouman]

Originally posted by: Black88GTA

Originally posted by: Beau
Bad oil separator will give you wisps of white smoke in your engine when you start your car, but it will go away almost immediately -- speaking from experience with the same engine as you: m62 V8 in my 540i. Not a hard fix, but time consuming. I don't think that's what you've got though. I don't see how coolant would be getting back into your oil from a bad separator... especially with enough volume to give you a milkshake like that. You most likely have a bad head gasket or a cracked head -- BMW aluminum blocks are notorious for this. If you've run hot even once, you have a high chance of having a cracked head.

When the oil separator went bad on my 840 (M60), accelerating from lights smokescreened traffic behind me so bad that nobody behind me really went anywhere until it dissipated a bit. The smoke was so thick you couldn't see through it.

Same thing happened in my '93 Dakota when the air filter was so clogged up that it was pulling air from the crankcase through the breather (or air/oil seperator....). Once I replaced the air filter, everything was fine.