Oil Smells Like Gas? Causes & How to Fix

This is a bad-news/worse-news story. The bad news is that somewhere in the engine’s water jacket there is a crack that is allowing the gasoline to mix with the anti-freeze/coolant which means that your fuel is being contaminated as is your anti-freeze/coolant. This is a no-win situation, however, you look at it.

Though you can drive with a little anti-freeze/coolant contaminating your gasoline, if the contamination builds, you run the risk of damaging the engine as the contamination starts clog up the system. As the galleries to which the anti-freeze/coolant is allowed to enter and clog up, you run the risk of damaging the water jacket the engine it surrounds.

Meantime, as the gasoline comes across to the other side, it begins to scour out the protection provided by oil and anti-freeze, causing its own problems. However, the result is a complete mess.

Well, that’s the bad news; the worse news is that the problem can be anywhere in the cooling system or engine. Anywhere the cooling system and the gasoline system are near one another there is the potential for either an engine breakdown or cooling system breakdown.

First, you have to empty the engine of all its liquids. Once that is done you have to find the point of origin of each issue. You do this by running a tracer dye through the engine and seeing where the intrusion begins. If the dye shows major damage to either side of the engine, then your best choice is a new block and waterjacket. This is an investment of about $2,200 without any labor which will add a good $800 to the price.

One other point of intrusion is in the manifold where the cooling lines and gasoline lines run side-by-side.