Red oil in cylinder head

[Jm4635]

Hi all,
Decided it was time to give my motor a birthday and do all new gaskets etc, when I removed the cylinder heads I found red oil, like auto trans fluid to completely fill at least 4 ports between the head gasket and cylinder block, everything looks okay and was curious to see if anyone has encountered this before, I can't find anything on this in the manuals
Cheers

[rumb]

Greetings,
Could you let us know what specific car you have.

What led you to this point that you are replacing head gaskets as that is not a normal thing to change just because.

Any chance you have a photo of the liquid, or perhaps one pointing out where the fluid was?

Besides gaskets at this point good opportunity to do chain and guides and inspect valve guides and replace at least stem seals.

At some point was the vacuum modulator on Trans leaking into the intake?

[raueda1]

Was the car running OK before your project?

[Jm4635]

So the main reason I I have got to this point was to do a timing chain replacement and timing chain guides as I had found a broken one, also suspected a cross threaded spark plug so it was head off to re tap a thread,
The car is a 450 sel with a m117 motor
The car was running okay not perfect intermittent white smoke which is strange but wasn't using coolant will post a photo asap
Thanks

[Jm4635]

These 2 holes were filled to the top and same on the other side

[rumb]

Id think those intake runners should be clean aluminum, not black. I suspect ATF but not sure what path. What do the piston tops look like?

[Jm4635]

Very much black, haven't got around to giving them a good scrub yet

[andrewk]

Hi all,
Decided it was time to give my motor a birthday and do all new gaskets etc, when I removed the cylinder heads I found red oil, like auto trans fluid to completely fill at least 4 ports between the head gasket and cylinder block, everything looks okay and was curious to see if anyone has encountered this before, I can't find anything on this in the manuals
Cheers

Suggest checking the vacuum modulator on your transmission. You may have ATF being sucked back into the intake.

ATF is typically the only red coloured fluid which might end up in your engine.

I would recommend getting the heads hot tanked and all the valve sealing and guides checked if you already have the heads off. Do not use abrasives!