Bad headgasket should have the coolant looking and smelling dirty, from the combustion gases pushing into the water jackets.
Depending on how much water we are talking about, it could be a waterpump seal. Sometimes condensation alone can make your sight glass look quite milky, but if your oil has a larger amount of water in it, it is likely the water pump seal.
Now I've checked the coolant and the colour is OK and it smells like water. The colour of the oil is brown/grey. I guess (know) it's more than just condensation.
If the headgasket is bad, will the smoke from the exhaust turn white?
I will check the waterpump in the weekend. What else to do when minus 13 degrees Celsius and lot of snow
best bet would have been to drain the oil into a clean pan then put it in a clear container and let it seperate. chances are when you pull the plug to drain it(if you havent been running it) it would come out first.
if their is any coolant colored seperation you could go farther, if its just milky then it was condensation from not getting the oil up to temp when riding.
I use the bike for racing only. So everytime I ride it, it will (hopefully ) get warm. I drained the bike when the engine was cold. Probably the white stuff is oil and coolant.
If its the pump bearing or seal the water level dropps quickly.
Head gasket ? Not a chance . The waterways are too far away from the oil gallerys to get there . Never seen one ducati head gasket fail mixing water with oil.
I have see a cracked head omiting coolant into the oil but this is rare. Its prob just plain old condensation.
__________________
life is work
For Ducati engine blueprinting/crank balancing/performance cylinderhead prep/ porting / big valve conversions-www.cjsracing.co.uk
For 1st class dyno-tuning ,mapping, custom eproms- and a whole load of other cool stuff www.hypertrick.net
@Chris - you saw the pictures above? I don't (obviously) have any experience of how condensation will affect the oil so my question is if condensation alone will create the white stuff seen in the pictures?
Looking at the pics it seems the lower area of the side cover has normal looking oil color. If there was a lot of coolant present it would accumulate there. The upper area has the slime. Methinks it's just condensation. I'd wager that when you drained the oil it looked fine yet had some whirls of whitish slime floating on the surface.
Pull a head cover and I'd bet it also has the slime but the cam and guts are clean. Right? Remember that condensation will accumulate on the coldest surfaces and it takes a LOT of heat and time to drive that moisture out.
Think of a heat cycle. The last areas to heat up are things that are the farthest away from the combustion being the ends of the side covers and head covers. And the slime coated sight glass is on the nice and cold primary cover. One of the byproducts of combustion whether it is a camp fire your gas stove or an engine is water. Actually quite a bit of water as evidenced by the slimy goop that is present. It condenses and with oil present is trapped with the oil.
To see a lot of this water visually think of a car on a cold morning. All that white vapor escaping the tailpipe is pure water. And the inside of that engine has the same slime as your bike. We just don't think about it or see it as cars don't have a sight glass. Pull the dip stick and it looks like good oil. As the engine heats up and the metal surfaces and exhaust system heat up it turns to invisible high temperature steam and evaporates immediately.
The good thing is that if the water pump is good you didn't trash your rod bearings. All it cost you is about $1 worth of Three Bond sealer to confirm it.
999 - water in oil
Linear Mode
