HELP! Milkshake on the first start.. a lot of water in the oil

[banana70]

Ok... this is the 74 orig 318 block with kb pistons, 280 cam, late magnum heads upgrade, and mp single plane intake manifold (all the recipe taken from article "the little mopar that could", carcraft magazine)

Everything was assembled to specs, then just little trouble with the timing on the initial start and then started,  after a few seconds a "shower" of milkshake started to come out from all around the oil filter... we turned of the engine, and checked oil dipstick and came out also with the oil and water/coolant mixed-up.
 
more info:
1) combustion did not fail (we turned off the engine) so water did not got into the cylinders
2) Took the intake out and noticed that it only uses the front square ports for water passage, so NO ports on the rear (this is where I suspect the water got into the valley but it did not looked evident) also the bottom of the intake (inside) was sprayed with water/oil.
3) Took both cylinder heads out.. everything looked normal but we noticed that the gasket does not have a water hole for the bigger front of block to head.. this seems to be normal because every gasket for small blocks we looked at seems to look the same way.
4) Removed the water pump, looked normal, no cracks on the housing and was well sealed, water passages thru timing chain housing looked normal, no cracks or holes.
5) Ran some air through block's water passages and they were still filled with clean water/coolant, this means no oil in the water sytem.. only water in the oil system.
6) The Valve cover insides and rockers were sprayed with water/oil drops.

The most courious thing is the huge ammount of water that managed to get into the oil in such a small period of time, so much that we believe that this caused so much pressure to be built inside and caused the shower thru the oil filter.

At this time we are clueless, the intake into the valley theory is the stongest but not 100% sure, also, although there's enough information that this magnum upgd. is supposed to be straight forwar,d we now also feel unsecure about something being wrong with the heads and or the relation to the block...

Any ideas?, Is this just a case of over/under torque or bad seal or is there the posibility of too much pressure in the water system?? due to what?...

Plase Help... any comment or experience is welcome

Excuse the long explanation!

[Aussie Challenger]

  Did you check the front timing case cover where the water holes go into the block, I have seen many corroded there. I have also heard that the magnum heads are prone to cracking. Have you left out a water plug in the block?   

[Moparal]

I think when I used to build small blocks years ago, there was a head bolt that if you didnt use sealant it would leak water in the heads. Kinda in the middle of the head as I recall. And certain yr timing covers had a certain gasket. You had to use the correct yr gasket or a bolt hole leaked water.

[bb71challenger]

I have a hunch it has something to do with the late model head swap. I really dont have anything to back it up just like I stated, a hunch. Look carefully over what you have done to the engine. There has to be something very obvious somewhere for that kind of thing to happen, it does not sound like a little leak at all. Good luck and I hope it is something that does not hurt the engine.

[banana70]

Thanks Aussie, moparal and bb71 for your replies... I did check on the timing case looked good.. if it was a crack on the head, wouldn't it be just a few drops of water instead a lot?

Thanks moparal for the bolt tip.. I'll consider it when re-assembly

bb71.. to elaborate further on your hunch.. if it was the heads... how or where in the head can such amoun of water pass to or mix with oil if there's no oil passing thru the head at any time?

Thanks.. 

[Moparal]

Look at that center bolt. The manual I believe used to say to put a sealant on it since it goes into the water system.  Heads are off so you could just use a thin screw driver to see if it bottoms or not. The earlier models had water

[Aussie Challenger]

  One other thought that came to mind, did you check the depth of all the head bolt threads, that is are they pulling down tight enough to seal the head gasket. I always run a thread tap down before I refit heads & especially if as Moparal says going into water the threads may be rusted up down low.

[femtnmax]

I had this on a Ford 390 due to bad machine shop work.  One point to be aware of is the water in the oil will start corroding the crankshaft journals immediately.   On my engine I did not realize I had a small leak, worked out of town a few months....The water etched the main journals enough that I had to have the crank mains turned another 0.010.   Sh***t
Ford FE's are real bad sealing the intake manifold.  I use only 3M super weatherstrip adhesive to do the following.  I glue the intake gaskets at both front and rear water passeges, both sides of the intake gaskets.  Glue the gaskets to the heads.  I glue the cork end seals to the block.  You must work fast and efficiently because this glue sets up fast, like in a few minutes.  I put a light coat of silicone the length of the cork end seals so the intake can slide around easily for final adjustment. 
Yes, if you remove the intake your replacing all these gaskets again because this glue is a bear to get back off.   ON the other hand, no water leaks.  We did it this way at the dealership I wrenched at, because we did not want comebacks, and we didn't have them.

[Chryco Psycho]

this is unusual , even with all the water in there why did it come out of the filter , that should have stayed sealed is the port into the block blocked somehow , do you know for a fact that the oil & water were Not mixed before starting the engine ? We filled a block last year & checked the water shortly after & the water was low & the oil was overfilled befroe we started the engine , needless to say we didn`t start it up . I agree with above that the intake & timing cover are the obvious places to get the water into the oil , the other ? is the big ports into the heads at the front that are blocked , that doesn`t seem right to me , I Am not aware of any port matching  problems with using Magnum heads but i am not an expert on that swap

[kvollmer]

Sorry to hear what happened! Sounds like a lot more water than a gasket would allow in the oil. Was the engine oil system primed before start up to be sure the oil pressure was ok? Seems to me there is an oil gallery plug behind the frost plug on the right rear of the engine. Wouldn't be hard to forget to put it back in after the rebuild. Just a thought!

[kvollmer]

Got to thinking about what I said about the oil gallery plug behind the frost plug. Not so sure that's a Mopar I was thinking of. Sorry about that!!

[acudanut]

  I can't believe you guys did not remember me and my exact problem.  NO problem, easy fix.  See Forum...http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=54893.0

[banana70]

Thank you all for the replies...

We did not have a way to prime the oil pump so we did it the olld fashion way.. Short term cranks with no coil wire...

Chryco.. We poured the water mix jus minutes before the start but we don't know for a fact that water wasn't already in the oil before the start.

The Intake has water ports only in the front, so the ports in the back of the heads are blocked and "sealed" by the intake manifold and gasket when attached (here's where we think the system failed)...

What I said called my attention is that the head/block gasket does not have a hole  for the front/upper water port of the block, so this port gets sealed when the heads are attached to the block... i guess that this makes the water flow all the way to the back of the head, then to the block and then flow back to the front to the water pump  ...

Does anybody have a diagram of how the coolant circulates in the system?

[moper]

How easily did the intake bolt on? Did all the holes line up perfectly, or did you have to oval or pry things to get them started? I'm leaning more toward the intake gasket leaking it in as you were adding it. Definately plan to replace the bearings and rings, and be careful to clean out all the oil passages when it goes back together.

[banana70]

Cuda nut I've read your thread and seems to be alike problem.. the thing on my case is that all the oil in the engine became a whitish emulsion (exactly like a milshake) ....

But we suspect that the cause was the same as yours....

The other thing that is making me go nuts is that shower out of the oil filter.... is it possible that the oil pump sucked this emultion and since it is a lot less dense it created a huge ammount of pressure??  if so, as chryco stated, very unusual!