I'm pretty sure I have a piece of metal in my finger. Should I cut my arm off, dance around a burning tire, put a band-aid over it, or commit suicide?
'pretty sure' is not good enough... first in identifying character, second, in volume.
Furthermore, one cannot make appropriate decisions on path of treatment before knowing sufficient information.
Don't start the engine... push or pull it around to do the following:
Get a steel drain pan, clean it out GOOD. Clean enough to eat lasagnia out of. Put a magnet in the bottom of the pan.
Clean up the engine and oil pan with degreaser and a pressure washer.
Pull the drain plug, and drain the oil. Watch it flow, notice the color and texture of the oil. Drain it all.
Now take that pan, and LOOK at the contents- first, the volume. Did you get seven quarts from a five quart pan? if so, there's two quarts of SOMETHING in there.
Water and anti-freeze will settle to the bottom of the pan, but SOME will make the engine oil assume a 'chocolate milkshake' identity. Ethylene Glycol coolant will smell sweet. Under a black-light, you'll probably SEE plumes of glycol as it sorta binds together.
Pour off the pan little-at-a-time to a clean storage container, and as you get closer to the bottom of the pan, you may find more water or coolant. Observe.
IF you want to really know (if it isn't really obvious), you can take samples of the oil and send it to a lube analysis lab to determine not only if there's water or anti-freeze, but wether there's aluminum, tin, copper, antimony, brass, lead... and frequently, if you identify the make and model of engine and/or machine, the lab will be able to tell you the most likely source of what was found in your sample (they can tell you, for instance, that the presence of one particular type of steel particle, and another aluminum, and a little of brass, indicates that there is exessive binding causing wear in your Buick 455's oil pump wear plate and oil pump drive shaft...
But you'll probably be able to see most of the contamination with your eyes.
If it doesn't smell sweet, or look green... it is probably condensation, not coolant. Condensation tends to accumulate by environmental circumstances, and the way this spring has been, I'd be surprised if you DIDN'T have some condensation (my tractors all did!!!)
If it IS coolant, leave the pan off, and put a few pounds of pressure on the radiator cap with a test kit... turn the engine to TDC #1, and thread a compression test gauge into the plug or injector port, and see if pressure in that chamber comes up. Repeat for all the rest. While that's happening, see if you get coolant dripping out of the pan.
IF you see pressure coming up on a given cylinder (or two) that means you have a head gasket issue, or a cracked cylinder head. A leakdown test on an offending cylinder may cause coolant to be discharged into the oil areas in the same way, but you'd need to release the cooling system pressure and observe for bubbles... which may take a while to propogate to the radiator cap, so be patient.
Find out what the problem really is, before taking action. This saves you from amputating a leg over an ingrown toenail.
water in my oil !
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