John,

This is very bad.  If coolant is indeed getting into the crankcase you
have a failure of the lower cylinder seal(s), failure of the sealant on
a head nut under the valve cover, a cracked head, or possibly failure of
the ATF cooler if you have an automatic transmission.

Rebuilding is probably the only fix, coolant in the oil will destroy
your bearings in short order, typically in under 2000 miles, which may
be the clicking you hear--a bad rod bearing that will shortly lead to
catastrophic failure.

Or the clicking could just be a sticky lifter.  If you find a leak you
can fix, you can try replacing the oil, drive 500 miles, and replace it
again.  If you are really lucky you may get some more miles out of this
engine, but start saving for that rebuild!

John Houser wrote:
>
> Volks,
>
> My 84 Westy continues to frustrate me.  Saturday it was running
> quietly,
> Sunday morning I cranked it up and it had developed an engine click.
>
> Yesterday, I worked on the engine a while and saw what I thought was
> smoke
> comming from the transmission area.  What I was really looking at was
> water
> vapor comming from the crancase vent.  The previous owner had hooked a
> hose
> to the crankcase vent, run it over the engine and terminated over the
> transaxle.  [It should  go into the lower hole in the elbow just past
> the AFM
> shouldn't it?]  Any way water vapor and a few droplets of water were
> comming
> out of this hose.  I caught some of it in a cup and it appeared to
> have an
> orange tint.  [ I use the orange coolant.]  Since I have never seen
> this
> before, I assume that the click and the vapor venting are related.  If
> you
> have had these symptoms, please let me know what your problem was and
> what
> you did to solve it.
>
> TIA,
> John Houser, Jr.
> Perry, Ga.

--
Stuart MacMillan
Seattle

'84 Vanagon Westfalia w/2.1
'65 MGB (Daily driver since 1969)
'74 MGB GT (Restoring sloooowly)

Personal mechanic for:
'70 MGB GT (Daughter's)

Assisting on Restoration (and spending OPM):
'72 MGB GT (Was daughter's, now son's)
'64 MGB (Son's)

Stripped and gone but their parts live on:
'68 MGB, '73 MGB, '67 MGB GT