My 95 4.9 has had a lot of white goopy condensation in the oil dipstick tube, none under the oil cap. The truck round trips about 3 miles a day. No loss of coolant and the goop was not mixed with the oil, but seemed as though it was trying to vent up the dipstick tube. I had replaced the PCV in October during a tuneup(original was oem style plastic), I went and put the old PCV back in and the problem has gone away. There are still water droplets on the dipstick but no goop. The new one I installed must have had incorrect valve size and or spring tension. This is just a heads up on a strange fix to a strange problem.

 

Suggest the engine never gets hot enough long enough to bake out the moisture.

Depending on the condition of the PCV valve - have to question whether the old valve is drawing more moisture out, or not letting as much new moisture-laden air in?

Doggone - I do my best thinking when it's Miller Time! :-)

 

I've Noticed This as Well. I Have A 2000 4x4 Lariat And I Cleaned It Out Myself.
Then Was Gonna Do An Oil Change And Bamm It Was Back. So I Flushed The Engine With It Running And Good Greif All The Crap That Came Out. So here In A Week I Will Check It Again.

 

Id say both of you guys are not getting your engine to operating temp. I would clean out all the white goop you can find. including the pcv system and all the tubes that connect to it. go get a can of engine flush and a pcv valve and throw it in your engine. Next get your engine to operating temp and drive it around for 20 minutes or so after that. Get it home where you have your oil change stuff ready. turn it off and wait 20 min for it to cool down a little bit and the oil will drain down into the pan.

Now you have to make a oil decision. If you are running conventional throw penzoil yellow bottle oil in it. and remember all engines that come in a f-150 are back spec'd for use with 5w-30. If you are running a syn throw penzoil platinum it it. I say penzoil for a dirty or a gummed up engine because penzoil has amazing cleaning abilities.

You are going to want to prevent this from happening again. You will have to take the long way to work, or let the truck idle longer so you will have a km or so driving when it is up to temp. or you could get a block and or pan heater. there is a couple different engine heaters. I run a freeze plug heater and a oil pan heater. I will for next year run a inline coolant hose heater and my oil pan heater.
You can also run them on a timer so it will turn on a couple hours before you go to work. I run mine when its cold all the time because I work at all hours of the day, any day, and every day.

With my heaters its pretty nice with instant warmish air out the vents and hot air in 30 seconds. Good luck guys and condensation is a problem with the newest engines and it not uncommom too see but its a problem that can be prevented. Think of it this way a pot with water in it thats boiling will eventually be dry if you dont add water to it or turn the heat off. You want your engine to boil off all the condensation with its heat.

 

If anyone is still following this or comes across this thread I had this problem and found my T-stat was stuck wide open. My temp guage I thought was broken started to work, heater started to work, and i'm sure it was the reason for the condensation.
Not sure if it is what is causing your problems but it sure was a cheap fix!

 

cheap PCV valves are junk, i had the problem once and had 5 diffeant ones from the zone and orilley's, finally i just went and ordered the motorcraft from the dealer and never had the problem again.

 

Update on the goop coming up the dipstick. After replacing the PCV the problem lessened but was still present. I've tried this as an added fix, the breather filter inside the airbox seemed to be clogged with all the water coming thru it so I removed just the filter element. This will help the water flow easier. I'll post an update this weekend if this helped or not.

Thanks for the block heater idea (truck has one) but it's just not practical with how this truck is used.

 

Removed the filter element from the breather so the vent goes straight to airbox without restrictions. This completely solves the problem of yellow goop in the engine.

I feel a little sheepish this has perplexed me for about a month.