Most likely your oil cooler is going bad, and leaking oil under pressure
into your coolant. The way I tested mine was that I bypassed the cooler with
a plastic hose coupler and ran the engine for about an hour (keep an eye on
temps). When I got back to check it out, oil was dripping out of one of the
hose fittings.

The replacement cooler was about $150.

TomC
tcarrington@relitech.com
http://www.relitech.com/tomc
http://volksweb.relitech.com
85 Vanagon Crew Cab
82 Westy diesel=>gas conversion
81 Checker A-11 (Taxi)
65 Notchback

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sam pacifico [mailto:samhp@EXECPC.COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 3:32 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Oil in the coolant
>
>
> Help!  I just went to check the coolant level in the
> expansion tank of my
> '87 GL and saw a dark sludge-like substance on top of the
> coolant.  The
> finger-in -the -liquid test confirmed that it is engine oil.
> I am hoping
> that someone will tell me that this is a problem with the
> water pump and
> nothing greater!  Just prior to this I was telling myself how
> great the
> engine was running.  I had just set the timing and it was
> purring, actually
> almost silent, at 950 rpm.  Your opinion will be appreciated.
>