Thread: 300Tdi - Oil in Radiator

Originally Posted by Jayson

Hi,
Just after some advice on a '96 300Tdi Disco we looked at tonight.
Looking for a mate who is very impressed with my new disco.

The car was exactly what he was looking for except it had a significant amount of oil in the header tank for the radiator (Was like dipping your finger in a bucket of oil). The turbo was recently replaced and the owner seemed to think this oil was left over from the blown turbo. Is this likely to be the cause? Apparently the radiator was flushed when the new turbo was fitted.

Also the car was having problems with the alternator causing overheating due to the thermo fans not working. Does this sound right? I have only heard my thermo fans come on when in deep sand on a hot day.

Everything else on the car was in great condition so my mate is willing to spend a bit on the motor but would like some advice on whether its still a good buy

AFAIK, the turbo is oiled cooled only.. So strange that there could be oil in the tank from that. As for the thermos not cutting in.... 300tdi has a mechanical fan run off a viscous coupling... So it will constantly vary according to the heat anyway. The thermos should only be for the AC AFAIK. Hope this helps

The oil cooler on these cars is the radiator itself, so there may be a crack inside the tank. There will be two lines entering the radiator on the drivers side of the vehicle.. These will be for the oil cooling. Check it out.

Be careful, oil in the cooling system with an over heating motor generally means the head gasket or the head itself has a leak.

Oil in the water alone might be reason to suspect the oil cooler in the radiator as stated above. Over heating alone would be cause for concern could be a head/head gasket or a cheaper problem could be that the viscous fan is shot. It could be that you have two seperate faults oil cooler into radiator leak and viscous problem but I would be ruling out the head/head gasket fault before I went and spent my hard earned money.

from a tradie x 2 suspect head/and or gasket failure due to overheating and oil in header tank , check under oil cap for milky looking goo this is also a fair indication

The thermos will kick in at a certain temp regardless of the ac. i had huge overheating problems in low range till i sorted the thermos out, one was shot. If the vehicles a deisal and shes got non radiator related oil and water problems give it a miss. Very expensive to repair.

The whole thing sounds like you should walk away. the alternator has nothing to do with the thermo fans, the overheating has everything to do with the possibility that the rad is blocked with oily sludge, and regarding THAT I'd say at best a oil cooler leak at worst a block or head issue. Either way not cheap. Keep walking it sounds like there are lots of hidden problems waiting to rear their ugly heads.....and vacuum out your wallet.
A cheap 300Tdi can become an expensive 300Tdi very quickly

JC

My 300tdi had both thermo fans fail so I bought second hand replacements and fitted them and now all is well, but they run whenever the aircon is on. The viscous fan has also been replaced.

Sounds like you might have at least two problems with that one. Be wary of head gasket failure.