Blown Head Gasket

[cheshired5]

Drain the cooling system, refill with distilled water, drive around as normal for a week or two then drain the cooling system and refill with distilled water and repeat as often as is necessary.
If there is no chance of freezing, you can do the above over several weeks.
You may still end up with a hint of rainbow sheen in the coolant but the concentration/dilution will eventually reach an acceptable level without replacing expensive pipework and associated cooling system hardware.
Don't add any coolant until the system is clear.

90°C water flowing around the system is an excellent degreaser on its own, is a very efficient coolant and is cheap.

[Clan]

Originally Posted by RM955I

Got some more flushing to do…they say they ran 3 lots of coolant through it but the oil keeps coming out. I’ve read that a dishwasher tablet works wonders (obviously as a flush not to be left in there) and I think I have a few water and dishwasher tab flushes to do before I refill with proper coolant.

The oil will have worked it'self into all the rubber hoses and eventually will make them soft , swell and burst ..

[cheshired5]

Originally Posted by Clan

The oil will have worked it'self into all the rubber hoses and eventually will make them soft , swell and burst ..

So is the official Volvo fix to replace the oil cooler and every cooling system rubber hose?

[Clan]

Originally Posted by cheshired5

So is the official Volvo fix to replace the oil cooler and every cooling system rubber hose?

yes , which will cost around £300 or more ..... have a look inside the top hose see if the oil has attacked it yet ... I have done about 3 of these clean ups . it needs an emulsifier cleaning agent in the system to mix all the remaining oil into the water .. its not a quick job ... the very hose you don't change will burst several years later when you have forgotten all about it .

[Tannaton]

Basic physics would say that oil and water don't mix, so running the system with just water isn't going to draw out all of the oil, which unlike say cooking oil is engineered to have a more controlled viscosity through a wide temperature range. Some form of detergent (or emulsifier as Clan refers to) will be required to break it down and dissolve/neutralise it.

[RM955I]

At the risk of people pouring scorn on me, I won't be replacing all of the hoses at £300: not on a 207,000 mile car.

Chances are I won't have it in a couple of years or it will have gone to that great scrapyard in the sky.

I'll be flushing the system using dishwasher tablets followed by a thorough rinse and see how it goes from there. It may not be the perfect solution but it's probably a sensible one.