Volvo Penta 5.7 GXI Fuel in Oil Runs smooth at idle

[mckaras]

Hi all, thanks for the advice and help in advance.

I have an engine I had stored in the warehouse that's going to be used for a project. I ended up getting it to start and it runs good at idle. Compression all checked out around 180 PSI for all cylinders.

I ran the engine after doing changing out the fuel pump assembly, raw water impeller kit and the leaking seal and I went to go get the engine ready to suck out all the old oil. I took off the filter and the oil was watery and smelled like gasoline. Turns out I had an extra 4 quarts in it after running it for just 10 minutes on the pallet.

I already have a new fuel pressure regulator in route. The new fuel pump is a Chinese one that's I swapped with the old one due to the low pressure fuel pump not working properly.

I do have the injector rail pulled off with the injectors as of today and wanted to ask if there's anything else I need to check. Any pointers on how to test and see which one of the injectors is stuck open would be great. I have a battery and pigtail for the injector to test it. I just want to know how I can tell which one is stuck open as one entire bank I tested after cycling the key and applied 12V to and they all looks like they worked properly.

 

[cyclops222]

10 minutes on a pallet ?Any water ?

 

[mckaras]

10 minutes on a pallet ?Any water ?

Yes of course it's always connected to raw water. It's just strange that much gas was dumped into the oil in such a short period of time.

 

[Lpgc]

You have the injectors and rail off the engine - If the injectors are clipped to the rail you could reconnect the fuel pump to the rail and see which injector(s) squirts fuel when there is fuel pressure but no power to any of the injectors... When the injectors are not being electronically pulsed they should not flow any fuel.

Also check the fuel pressure regulator, if it references to vacuum and has failed in a certain way fuel could leak through the vac line to the manifold.

If there's enough fuel getting into a cylinder to get past rings and contaminate oil would've expected it to misfire on the respective cylinder due to massively over-rich mixture.

 

[ESGWheel]

For me the numbers are not adding up. I’ll explain. I have learned from this forum that the compression numbers max out around 150, so something going on there.

But it’s the extra 4 qts of volume in the pan that does not make sense as simply blow by from a leaking injector or even two or more from only 10 mins of running. Perhaps the regulator as Lpgc suggests but even that leaking by I would not expect to dump a gallon of fuel into the manifold in 10 mins.

Without meaning to give offence, a couple of questions if you do not mind to help me better understand:

• When you say “oil was watery” do you mean it was extra ‘thin’ as if the viscosity was significantly lowered due to a lot of gas mixed in or do you mean it was milky in color as if contaminated by water?
• Is it possible the engine had 4 qts of oil in it already and not knowing, you added another 4 qts and there is some injector leaking and thus ring blow by that tinted the smell of the oil and thus assumed the extra was all gas?

And do you still have the containers of the extracted oil? If yes and in clear jugs let them sit and see what separates out. If not clear, give it a vigorous shake to mix it and dump some into a mason jar, and again let it sit and see what separates out. Thanks.

 

[kd4pbs]

I concur. First, there's no way an injector could let loose a whole gallon of fuel in 10 minutes even if it were mechanically stuck full on. Second, your eyes would be burning from being so rich. Third, there's no way that even if somehow an injector did let loose of that much fuel, it would leak past the rings to the crankcase, even with worn out rings. It would much prefer to dump out the exhaust.
It just doesn't make sense here... if that were gasoline gushing into a cylinder it would NOT have run good at idle.
If the engine started with 5 quarts and ended with 9, I hate to tell you, but you added a gallon of water in those 10 minutes from a cracked water jacket or leaking head or intake gasket.

 

[Lou C]

Agreed it doesn’t make sense; id be thinking of doing an air pressure test of the cooling passages to see if they hold pressure….

 

[mckaras]

I concur. First, there's no way an injector could let loose a whole gallon of fuel in 10 minutes even if it were mechanically stuck full on. Second, your eyes would be burning from being so rich. Third, there's no way that even if somehow an injector did let loose of that much fuel, it would leak past the rings to the crankcase, even with worn out rings. It would much prefer to dump out the exhaust.
It just doesn't make sense here... if that were gasoline gushing into a cylinder it would NOT have run good at idle.
If the engine started with 5 quarts and ended with 9, I hate to tell you, but you added a gallon of water in those 10 minutes from a cracked water jacket or leaking head or intake gasket.

There's zero water in the engine at all. I ran it two separate times. First time was half the run time. The oil was watery and smelled like straight gasoline, as far as any milkshake there was none. I sucked out all the oil and poured it out to check it. Even the oil in the filter itself was dark. It was just watery due to being diluted with fuel that much. As far as run time it may have been more time than just 10 minutes. Just a rough estimate, total run time between the two days was likely closer to 30 minutes.

I took the injector rail off and one injector was leaking fuel when it was primed. It did smell like straight gasoline out of that one side that the injector was leaking.

As far as it running good I mean that it did not shake violently but it did misfire ever so slightly at idle and under load it would misfire more frequently.

 

[mckaras]

For me the numbers are not adding up. I’ll explain. I have learned from this forum that the compression numbers max out around 150, so something going on there.

But it’s the extra 4 qts of volume in the pan that does not make sense as simply blow by from a leaking injector or even two or more from only 10 mins of running. Perhaps the regulator as Lpgc suggests but even that leaking by I would not expect to dump a gallon of fuel into the manifold in 10 mins.

Without meaning to give offence, a couple of questions if you do not mind to help me better understand:

• When you say “oil was watery” do you mean it was extra ‘thin’ as if the viscosity was significantly lowered due to a lot of gas mixed in or do you mean it was milky in color as if contaminated by water?
• Is it possible the engine had 4 qts of oil in it already and not knowing, you added another 4 qts and there is some injector leaking and thus ring blow by that tinted the smell of the oil and thus assumed the extra was all gas?

And do you still have the containers of the extracted oil? If yes and in clear jugs let them sit and see what separates out. If not clear, give it a vigorous shake to mix it and dump some into a mason jar, and again let it sit and see what separates out. Thanks.

Yes I extracted the oil and checked. I meant thinned out since there was so much gasoline. One injector I found was leaking on the port side.

I squirted a good bit of seafoam deep creep oil in every cylinder hence the higher compression.

I'm not sure what weight oil was in it before but the oil level definitely was a bit higher than normal on the dipstick. I just ran it to warm it up to extract it all and I pulled the filter and the oil was thinned out to the point it was like water. It reeked of gasoline. It may be possible the guy I bought the bought from added extra oil into it or changed it out since it looked new on the dipstick. More than likely it dumped a lot less gasoline into the oil than what I thought.

I am also not sure whether or not the old fuel pump dumped fuel via the vent hose or not, I never checked it. That in itself could have dumped more fuel into the oil since I did not start it that same day, it could be possible from priming it numerous times a few days in a row that it dumped into the intake.

I went ahead and replaced it with the chinese unit I keep in stock just as a cheap alternative so I can run it and see what other issues it would have.

 

[mckaras]

I concur. First, there's no way an injector could let loose a whole gallon of fuel in 10 minutes even if it were mechanically stuck full on. Second, your eyes would be burning from being so rich. Third, there's no way that even if somehow an injector did let loose of that much fuel, it would leak past the rings to the crankcase, even with worn out rings. It would much prefer to dump out the exhaust.
It just doesn't make sense here... if that were gasoline gushing into a cylinder it would NOT have run good at idle.
If the engine started with 5 quarts and ended with 9, I hate to tell you, but you added a gallon of water in those 10 minutes from a cracked water jacket or leaking head or intake gasket.

Not entirely sure how much I had to begin with in the engine. I recall it being more than the 5.5 quarts with filter if I remember correctly. Just to clarify by watery I mean thinned out to the point that it had the same viscosity as water when I poured out oil from the filter into the oil container. It was clean 100% of water however including when I extracted it from the engine.

 

[kd4pbs]

Indeed, I could understand several ounces from a stuck injector and not running it or the fuel pump/cooler module overflowing. Thanks for clarifying and updating. Hopefully, this fixes your issues.

 

[mckaras]

You have the injectors and rail off the engine - If the injectors are clipped to the rail you could reconnect the fuel pump to the rail and see which injector(s) squirts fuel when there is fuel pressure but no power to any of the injectors... When the injectors are not being electronically pulsed they should not flow any fuel.

Also check the fuel pressure regulator, if it references to vacuum and has failed in a certain way fuel could leak through the vac line to the manifold.

If there's enough fuel getting into a cylinder to get past rings and contaminate oil would've expected it to misfire on the respective cylinder due to massively over-rich mixture.

Yes I checked and one injector was leaking. I changed it out and primed it a few times and there was no others leaking after a few minutes and I left it out a day and no leaking currently from it. I just reassembled it. Vac line from the fuel pump is dry as well.

Fuel pressure regulator was all clogged up as well when I ran it, I only noticed it after pulling it. I have a new one I just installed. I have not ran it after changing out the oil, filter, injector, and the fuel pressure regulator.

It is possible as I mentioned to the others that it may have leaked in from the manifold with the old fuel pump. That engine was not started in a very long time and had bad fuel along with a barely working LPFP. Very likely that fuel could have been dumped in after messing around with the engine trying to get it to start. I never checked the engine oil after messing around with the engine cranking it over and over trying to get it to start. Not to mention I had it hooked up to the standalone fuel tank and did not pull the fuel relay.

 

[mckaras]

Indeed, I could understand several ounces from a stuck injector and not running it or the fuel pump/cooler module overflowing. Thanks for clarifying and updating. Hopefully, this fixes your issues.

Hopefully! Fingers crossed it does. I almost parted this engine out since I thought it was locked up and it ended up being a starter that was shot. Thanks for all the help guys! I don't typically work on much of these fuel injected engines but it's nice to have some advice on what to check and what to do in case I miss something or simply don't know it.

 

[ESGWheel]

So this is good news! Let’s go with the was gas diluted but not as much as initially suspected

For the regulator all clogged up as well as the leaking injector > it may all be related to the dreaded internal paint in the fuel cell syndrome. Read this thread link for how to fix.

Please let us know how it goes. Thanks!

 

[mckaras]

So this is good news! Let’s go with the was gas diluted but not as much as initially suspected

For the regulator all clogged up as well as the leaking injector > it may all be related to the dreaded internal paint in the fuel cell syndrome. Read this thread link for how to fix.

Please let us know how it goes. Thanks!

Will do! Thanks for the link. All of the FPR on all of my GXI engines I ended up swapping out. I'm assuming the only way to really get rid of all the clogging up is to get the paint on the inside of the pump housing stripped off like your post said? This is an engine I'll either end up using for a boat if I come across one. I switched over all of my boats to non ethanol and threw in fuel stabilizer.

 

[ESGWheel]

I do not recall when or even if VP stopped painting the interiors of their fuel pump assys. What you can do is remove the fuel filter and look inside the circle of where the filter mates and see if there is an indication of black paint. If yes, its painted inside. So then only 2 choices, DYI or Troy. I recommend the latter.

Also, would be a good time to get the injectors cleaned. Send to a shop that tests them throughout the RPM range (some only do one RPM setting; it takes more expensive equipment to test throughout the range). It will be a couple of hundred but well worth it. Confirm with them that they will send along the upper and lower O-Rings as part of the service, they should.

Also in the thread is the part number for the BOSCH regulator, much less $ then OEM and the same thing.