Oil in Coolant again!

Had my intake manifold gaskets replaced by my mechanic last year in my 97 Supercharged Riviera. He used an updated design.
Changed the oil and tranny fluid last month and decided to check the oil today. It was a quart low! Looked at the coolant reservoir and it had a ring of sludge, underside of radiator cap was clogged with oil. My heart sank. I have only put 6000 miles on the car since the gaskets were changed. The car drives fine. Could the LIM gaskets have gone again? Could it be the head gasket? No coolant in oil. I changed the spark plugs in May and they all looked fine. Please Help!!!

Is it possible he didn't get all the oil out of the cooling system? Did he do a thorough cleaning/flush?
If it wasn't removed properly, it may just be residual build up. Even if done "properly", it's near impossible to get all that muck out of the cooling system.

It's possible your engine is burning the oil, and the sludge is just rusty coolant. Are you sure it's oil in the radiator? Try flushing the coolant, put in fresh and see if it repeats or gets any better. That's what I'd do.

I'm pretty sure not all the oil was flushed out the system then. 6,000 miles is certainly within the realm of oil being burned off, if that's when you last added it.

To add to AA's suggestions, I too have had rusty coolant in my Lesabre's old engine. Did the same type of nasty buildup on the radiator cap. I'd re-flush and fill with new coolant as well.

Maybe just fill/flush it with distilled water at first so you don't waste all that money on coolant.... Plus it'll be a lot easier to tell how clean it's coming out with water instead of coolant.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I was just surprised because I had changed the oil last month and it was a quart low when I checked it last week after about only 400-500 miles. I washed out the reservoir a couple of days ago and it looked mostly like dex-cool sludge. Same as inside the radiator. I will drain and refill the radiator and then watch out for anything to develop. The car has only 87,000 pampered miles, it has never burned oil.

Did you start the car, shut it off, then check the oil level after the oil change? The oil filter holds ~1/2 quart by itself.

Yes, of course. I even add oil to the new filter, its usually 3/4 full before I screw it on.

urbanski_m wrote:

Yes, of course.  I even add oil to the new filter, its usually 3/4 full before I screw it on.

Just checkin

If gaskets were THAT bad to be missing an entire quart in 500 miles, you'd have some pretty noticeable issues I think. Also, a quart in that little mileage burning through the engine would absolutely result in some serious smoke out the tailpipes one would think. I'd flush it, top off the oil, and just keep a close eye on everything. Hopefully this is just some sort of weird fluke.