[1ricardo]

Dear Friends,

I have a 2000 996 with an unknown history with 90 K miles and unfortunately there is a lot of oil on the water reservoir but no water on the oil, and here is what I know about the car
- I did not make any leak/compression test
- The oil cooler was pressure tested and its ok
- The AOS was not tested
- There is a lot of oil in the water reservoir, but the oil on the deep stick is very, very clean
- I don't know if the WP was replace any time, don't have the car here with me now, to see if the gasket was cutted
- No matter what I'll put the engine/transmission out ( to try to fix this issue + IMS + Clutch +WP + OAS + Coolant Hoses + Water reservoir + Vacuum lines?! + Oil pressure sensors + wherever you guys tell me it's a good time to change)
But my questions are:
1-) Let's assume this whole problem was the OAS (not likely) could a faulty OAS cause that much oil in the coolant system?
and if yes, how can I double check this info before disassemble the heads ( which is going to be another can o worms)
2-) Now let's assume the head is cracked, how do I check for this? Is the only way to check this is but tearing down the whole thing?
3-) Once I have the heads out, how do I check if they are cracked? Sent to a machine shop or use some type of dye?
4-) Most of people say that its the head 1-3, but then again, what if it's both or bank 4-6? So my question is:
Do I remove both, no matter what?
Do I send both to the machine shop so the head that is not bad could be checked and the valves guides and seat cleaned / refitted / fixed / improved, so I can have both heads in a OK shape?
5-) Once I remove the heads, how can I check if the block/cylinders lines are not cracked as well? Is there some kind of dye to do this job or again, I'll have to ship the whole assembly to a machine shop to be checked?
6-) I heard that there are 2 kind of bolts that holds the heads on the block, where one is a elastic one the other one it's not? Is that true? If yes how can I know which one my engine use?

Thank you all for the help and I hope some of those answer could help out JIM R as well