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12a milky dipstick.

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Old 02-24-12, 01:52 PM
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12a milky dipstick.

Hello folks. i have a 81 rx7 i have noticed a little bit of mikly residue on the top of the dipstick by the handle. when i pull the dipstuck out it has nice clear oil on the bottom indicator and no sign of oil at all. only at the top. anyone ever hear of this? is it a regular issue for 12a's?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Old 02-24-12, 02:05 PM
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Open your oil fill and look at the cap and the insides? Is there gunk in there as well? If the
crankcase is not vented or vented poorly condensation will build up and leave the goopy
mess you see OR you have coolant leak internally. Do you see a lot of white smoke when it
runs?
Old 02-24-12, 03:02 PM
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there is almost no way for coolant to mix with the oil, so there is about a 99% chance its condensation. either change the oil more, or drive it harder/longer
Old 02-24-12, 07:21 PM
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It is most likelly a crank went issue I had the same problem before its the nipple on the side of oil fill tube closer to the fire wall.
Old 02-24-12, 07:51 PM
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Originally Posted by rx8-cyl
Hello folks. i have a 81 rx7 i have noticed a little bit of mikly residue on the top of the dipstick by the handle. when i pull the dipstuck out it has nice clear oil on the bottom indicator and no sign of oil at all. only at the top. anyone ever hear of this? is it a regular issue for 12a's?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Unscrew the cap on the middle iron where you put in oil. Look under this cap to see if it's there. Since the tube is so high, it might not matter and I've had several watery 12a's and 13b's and none showed that way.

When I had a Vega, you would pull the filler plug for when you added oil. If it was milky inside, you always had a blown (or blowing) head gasket and I've observed that on other cars as well except that when you drain the oil it looks like a cappuccino; I shudder to think of the lubricating oil's properties at that point...

Is your PCV working?

Pull both trailing plugs out and let it sit, if you've got a bad o ring, eventually water will weep out one or the other plug holes.

If you have normal water temp though, I would think it's just condensation and not a big deal.
Old 02-24-12, 07:58 PM
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Otherwise known as "LUNG MUSTARD"

Yes, its ugly. Yes, it can be embarassing. But..... Is it a problem?

There are so many threads on how to deal with lung mustard, but I say, what's the problem? The way I see it, you've got a little eentsy teentsy bit of moisture living in an oil rich environment. What's the worst that can happen? Maybe a bit of rust development in the oil fill tube itself, but other than that I can't really think of anything.

There are methods to install a PCV valve, and I've even contributed to the numerous discussions with my advice of simply running a vacuum line to the nipple on the fill tube. So yes, there are many methods to control lung mustard.

But, again I say! What is the issue? As long as you change your oil on a regular basis, and the car is driven on a regular basis, I really wouldn't worry about it. As a matter of fact, I don't worry about it at all. The only time I would be concerned is if I were putting her up for long term storage.

So I say, cap everything and tear it up! Seriously though, I run a single vacuum line (other than brake booster), and that is for the vacuum advance. It doesn't get much simpler than that.





(Disclaimer: Be advised that Kentetsu is currently reading/diagnosing/posting while Inebriated)
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Old 02-24-12, 08:03 PM
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Originally Posted by t_g_farrell
Open your oil fill and look at the cap and the insides? Is there gunk in there as well? If the
crankcase is not vented or vented poorly condensation will build up and leave the goopy
mess you see
No one mentioned this when I asked this question not so long ago. I think I need to look into the venting a lot further and I would recommend the op take this piece of advice the priority cause..

Originally Posted by j9fd3s
either change the oil more, or drive it harder/longer

I took this advice before but feel its not a valid answer to stopping the occurrence due to my own findings. (I mean no disrespect to your knowledge) I changed out my oil, flushed the whole system and installed fresh filter/fluids. I have a ported engine that dose not make any power under 3k and so I feel my car is driven pretty hard. I also live in the back woods on mountain roads, etc.. I go for hour long + drives daily and get large amounts of this grey froth every time.

I cant be changing my oil daily so there must be more to the root cause of this problem, and the venting mentioned above sounds worth looking further into.
Old 02-24-12, 09:02 PM
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Originally Posted by Adonis Blue
No one mentioned this when I asked this question not so long ago. I think I need to look into the venting a lot further and I would recommend the op take this piece of advice the priority cause..




I took this advice before but feel its not a valid answer to stopping the occurrence due to my own findings. (I mean no disrespect to your knowledge) I changed out my oil, flushed the whole system and installed fresh filter/fluids. I have a ported engine that dose not make any power under 3k and so I feel my car is driven pretty hard. I also live in the back woods on mountain roads, etc.. I go for hour long + drives daily and get large amounts of this grey froth every time.

I cant be changing my oil daily so there must be more to the root cause of this problem, and the venting mentioned above sounds worth looking further into.
That **** condenses in the oil filler most of all because the filler spout is probably the coldest spot on the engine as well as the top of the dipstick . and what happens when condensation hits cold ???? it forms water droplets . and what happens when a drop or two of water mixes with oil vapor ??? It turns to lung butter .. Keep your engine temp up You no doubt have low engine temps screwing around in the mountains in the winter .. These engines consume huge amounts of air compared to pistons and from that air comes large amounts of moisture .. I am willing to bet that 80% of gasoline engines rotary or piston in winter climates have some amount of butter in the filler cap and dip tube .. Kentetsu told you guys what to do .. enough said ..

Last edited by gerald m; 02-24-12 at 09:06 PM.
Old 02-24-12, 10:20 PM
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This was always on the fill cap on my 12A racing engine. Don't know if it completely related to engine temps because mine were always around 210 at the filter. Anyway, I changed oil allot - every two race weekends - so I never saw any issues with it.
Old 02-24-12, 10:45 PM
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Originally Posted by Adonis Blue
No one mentioned this when I asked this question not so long ago. I think I need to look into the venting a lot further and I would recommend the op take this piece of advice the priority cause..




I took this advice before but feel its not a valid answer to stopping the occurrence due to my own findings. (I mean no disrespect to your knowledge) I changed out my oil, flushed the whole system and installed fresh filter/fluids. I have a ported engine that dose not make any power under 3k and so I feel my car is driven pretty hard. I also live in the back woods on mountain roads, etc.. I go for hour long + drives daily and get large amounts of this grey froth every time.

I cant be changing my oil daily so there must be more to the root cause of this problem, and the venting mentioned above sounds worth looking further into.
I don't think that he was implying that if you drove your car hard enough, you wouldn't develop lung butter. Rather, as I stated, as long as you are driving the car on a regular basis and sticking to regular oil changes, the presence of lung butter should not pose an issue.
Old 02-29-12, 12:22 AM
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Run a fuel line from your oil filler neck to your air filter. Put a mini breather filter on the other filler neck nipple. Problem solved.
Old 02-29-12, 12:08 PM
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Originally Posted by Adonis Blue
I took this advice before but feel its not a valid answer to stopping the occurrence due to my own findings. (I mean no disrespect to your knowledge) I changed out my oil, flushed the whole system and installed fresh filter/fluids. I have a ported engine that dose not make any power under 3k and so I feel my car is driven pretty hard. I also live in the back woods on mountain roads, etc.. I go for hour long + drives daily and get large amounts of this grey froth every time.

I cant be changing my oil daily so there must be more to the root cause of this problem, and the venting mentioned above sounds worth looking further into.
i don't know anything about the problem really... i do notice that this didn't used to happen, and B when i run my car hard and pull the oil cap off there IS water in it.

i'd look into the PCV setups, maybe even the competition style ones
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