Cadillac Gurgling

[Fleetwood Meadow]

It was a nice day today so I decided to start my 52 Cadillac. It started right up as it usually does so I let it run to charge the battery. When I shut it off and I was walking to the front of the car I heard a gurgling sound. Thinking it was the radiator I put my ear to the radiator and listened and the gurgling started again but it wasn’t coming from the radiator. It was coming from the oil filler neck. The gurgling lasted about a second and a half and then would stop and then did it again. This happened three times. What could possibly be causing a gurgling sound coming from there?

[Fleetwood Meadow]

Oil is dirty but not milky and not watered down. Antifreeze looks good. It’s cold and i don’t have much gas so I couldn’t let it warm up fully but the “smoke” coming out of the back was the typical cold engine steam. It didn’t smell like anything was being burned in the engine. 

[lump]

I would guess that you were indeed hearing antifreeze, but inside the engine block, from an area near the oil filler. Can't imagine oil gurgling. 

[Fleetwood Meadow]

I didn’t think it would be oil. I suspected that the sound might have been coming from somewhere else and echoing in the hollow space. 

[TerryB]

Usually what you hear when antifreeze is moving around in the engine and radiator.

[Spinneyhill]

It might indicate you have an air lock in the engine cooling system. Mine gurgles sometimes. Does the thermostat have a wee bypass hole in it? Mine had an air lock under the thermostat until I drilled a hole in the thermostat.

 

Idling an engine is usually not good for it in the long run. It doesn't get hot enough to evaporate all the combustion products (esp. water) from the oil and from the engine.

[Fleetwood Meadow]

I don’t normally just idle cars but this one has very little gas in it because the tank sending unit gasket leaks and I haven’t been able to get it to seal properly. There is a hole in the hydro-lectric system has a hole in the line somewhere in the wood they used to make the front seat so the windows are down and I can’t leave the car outside in case it leaks if I put gas in it so I haven’t been able to drive it. Also there is now a leak in the heater on the firewall. Come March I’ll be able to work on all of those easier. I say March but I’ll try working on them in the freezing cold. I have no idea how I’m going to replace a line that they installed before they built the seat into the car. There is wood used to make the back of the seat and the line is in it. 

I don’t believe there are any weep holes to let air through the thermostat. Besides the hole in the thermostat is there any good other way to help get air out of the engine? 

[cahartley]

My '32 Chevy has no thermostat yet I STILL had to drive it for a considerable time before it finally burped.

It would tend to get hotter than I like but not overheat except on one particularly hot day .

Just before I drove the car to a church picnic display on a brutally hot day in August I checked the coolant level which was down  a quart or more.

I topped it off before I left for the, approximately, 20 mile drive figuring this would be a real good test.

It was an excellent test.......the temperature needle hardly wavered over the medium mark.