Please HELP ME!!!! Burning Oil smell..

[rubjonny]

Eh?  Mate we were talking about changing the oil, where did coolant come into all this?

As you can see he's already cleaned & flushed all the oil out of the coolant, as I did when my cooler went

[NewStu]

My point was that if the oil cooler failed and contaminated the coolant, simply flushing out the coolant and re-filling will not work as the oil will continue to contaminate the coolant until the oil cooler is replaced.

[rubjonny]

Oh right sorry, I should have added 'after the oil cooler was bypassed' in my last post.  I was thinking it though. What, you cant read my mind?! 

I'm sure NuTTs has bypassed the cooler also, this is what I told him to do before flushing the coolant to diagnose if the oil in the header tanks was due to head gasket or oil cooler failure

[NuTTs]

Forgot to mention.. oil cooler is on order from VW and should arrive friday this week or monday next week. In the meantime I did an oil and filter change and the oil was not contaminated with coolant or water (nowt floating around the oil or vice versa).

Another thing I did notice was that the coolant hoses were quite hard when the coolant tank cap is on - this may point to a major airlock or a leaking head gasket.

It´s really weird though, the engine smells as if it´s over heating when it has been running for 5-10 mins.. and it does smell like burnt engine oil.

Unfortunately I wasn´t able to get to the car this morning as my motorcycle outing took a bit longer than the 2 hours I thought. Let´s see if the missus gives me a couple of hours this afternoon to investigate a bit further.

I know it seems a bit daft doing an oil and filter change without having the oil cooler ring swapped out or the coolant tank & cap swapped out but I´m just trying to do with what I have.. once the parts arrive from VW I´ll have more real options at hand.

BTW I´ve never had any coolant in the engine that I know of.. exhaust smell is not sweet as it would characteristacally be if coolant was weeping past the head gasket.

Thanks for all the help

NuTTs

[rubjonny]

hmm, let us know how you get on!
The coolant hoses should get resonably hard as the system presurises, but its hard to say how much is good hard, and how much is bad hard if you get me

Where is the temp gauge reading when you start to smell burnt oil?

It is possible for the HG to fail between & oil & water channel, and not into one of the bores.  It took about a fortnight of daily driving before coolant from my blown oil cooler was thick enough to be seen in the headertank, so it must have been a small leak or it only opened up once the engine got up to temp. (assuming it was the oil flush I'd done before dropping the sump that killed it)

If everything checks out I'd invest in a compression tester, and see if any of the cylinders are obviously down in pressure.

[NuTTs]

Update:

I´ve tried bleeding the cooling system again (in the dark) and sure enough, quite a bit of air came out of the header tank and nearly no crud surfaced (good sign.. I think) on the water-coolant mixture. All the hoses warmed up well except the lower one (engine oil temp at 116 degrees according to MFA) and engine coolant temp didn´t reach half way.

1. Radiator fan doesn´t turn on

2. No fluid comes through the overflow pipe

3. Bottom radiator hose still cold - Thermostat has probably gone kaput

4. Heating still doesn´t work (it has always worked until the oil/crap in header tank scenario).

So, in conclusion tomorrow I´ll be visiting the VW service centre and buying a new thermostat, water pump impeller (do I need to buy the whole pump?), new header tank and cap, push on the oil cooler order if it hasnt arrived yet.

I´ll try find a weekend when I can remove radiator and whole cooling system hoses etc, water pump, oil cooler and then methodically put the new parts in and put the system together.

Just as well I´m buying another second hand car (Range Rover.. yes I know it may look like I´m asking for trouble) as the GTI may be out of action for a few weeks and I need reliable transport to get my kid to school etc.

Thank you everyone for all your help. I´ll bump the thread back once I´ve replaced all the possible bits that could have gone wrong.

Regards,

NuTTs

[NuTTs]

Hi Guys.. I´ve been off the forum for a while as the golf project was put aside. Since then I´ve been through a Range Rover LSE and a e34 M5 (just sold it today  ).

Since my last post I drained the cooling system again and oil. I removed all the coolant hoses, radiator, oil cooler etc. I bought and installed a new oil cooler, oil filter, coolant hoses  (all original VW parts), temp sender/fan switch. Rubjonny, you were spot on. Problem fixed!!!

I´ll be taking the car for it´s MOT (ITV here in Spain) and then be back on the road again!!

Now, anyone know how to get rid of the mold-fungus that is growing on the door cards and seats/seatbelts?

Regards,
NuTTs

[rubjonny]

A mild soapy water solution should do it, and a nail brush.  I assume in Spain you have enough warm weather to allow the interior to dry properly unlike here atm!  If you can strip the seats down, the bsase covers come off quite easily but the uprights take a bit more work.