White under radiator cap

Re:White under radiator cap (Road and Track)

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:51:38 GMT

once its gone white and 'sticky" its a sure sign of an unwanted reaction, usually combustion gasses in the water from a blown head gasket.
a wet look is normal, but you cant always see a color from the coolant used. sometimes however its really obvious if blue or red coolant is used as the underside stains. i have been caught before with the overflow bottle filled with oily gunk from prior failures and
never cleaned out, and that can somethime slowly eeek back into the system and stain the cap.

have you checkes under the oil filler cap for any sign or condensation or 'whiteness". any "whiteness" there is definitely not normal and another indication of collant/gasket fault

Another posisble problem is diffenrent collant being mixed and reacting. the results are unpredicatable, but sometimes this ends up as a slippery mess under the cap and right thru the entire system
my suggestions are:......
remove and thoroughly clean the oil cap, over flow bottle, filler neck and rad cap in hot soapy water
top up and bleed the water sytem as per factory instructions. dont worry about any coolant/inhibitor
test drive till it gets real hot
let it cool and check both caps.. moisture or whiteness under oil cap are NOT normal.

Re:White under radiator cap (MR2QIK)

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:48:32 GMT

If it's a milky gunk then that's not good. What prompted you to change the radiator cap? Was it overheating?

Re:White under radiator cap (Cruiser97_80)

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:43:38 GMT

Pictures woukd help a lot here. Where is it located on the cap, Is it powdery, Is it slimey/oily, etc. etc.

Re:White under radiator cap (WIDEMR)

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 17:48:52 GMT

Or oil if its milky white

Re:White under radiator cap (3sgeTurbo)

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 17:46:24 GMT

You can just go an buy a 1L bottle of pre-mixed coolant and keep and eye on it,

White under the oil cap is just **** in the coolant, what you really need to keep an eye out for is when you have white under the oil cap.

Re:White under radiator cap (triadelite)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:27:21 GMT

Assuming this is normal..I should still go buy some coolant and keep it with me incase anything goes bad?

Re:White under radiator cap (EssDub)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:24:24 GMT

Condensation that occurs naturally during heat cycling (i.e, cold, hot, cold, hot, etc...) will collect in there. If there is any sort of residue or slime in the cooling system, it will commonly surface around the filler neck and cause all kinds of funky colours to show up.

Re:White under radiator cap (triadelite)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:06:23 GMT

Hmm, well i still have the old cap which im wondering if i should switch back to, is there an explanation for the white under the cap??

Re:White under radiator cap (EssDub)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:04:38 GMT

Takes more than a 3km drive around the block to work that out. Keep an eye on the coolant level every few days and top up as required.

White under radiator cap (triadelite)

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:56:51 GMT

Hello everyone,
Ok.. I have just bought a new radiator cap and it fits and all, though i took for a little drive around the block just to make sure its not leaking and is pressurising properly.
Once i got back and check the cap there was a lot of white under the cap when it was black there before.. does this mean its leaking??
):