What is this stuff in the intake trunking?

[pharriso]

I took the radiator & intake trunking out to tidy up the front end of the engine bay this weekend.

Inside the front of the airbox & in the intake trunking there is a thick while deposit:

At first I thought it was mo(u)ld, but it has a consistency more like caulking; any ideas to what it is?

[theelanman]

have you been waxoiled?.........

[pharriso]

have you been waxoiled?.........

nope, neither the car or I....

[Certified Lotus]

Looks like the milky mess of water and oil mixture. But if it's not inside all of your airbox I'm stumped. Was it also inside the air filter ?

[KevJ+2]

Has someone used expanding foam to seal it

[el-saturn]

to me it looks like the dreadful oil/water emulsion: BUT how did it get THERE?? sandy 36 4982

[trw99]

As bad a case of Air Intake Psoriasis as I've ever seen, Phil.

Get your Sprint to the surgery sharpish!

Tim

[Bill]

YIKES !!!

Bill

[fattogatto]

Salt residue?

[pharriso]

Unlikely to be oil/water emulsion as my cylinder head doesn't have a breather box (with tube back to the air box)

Filter in the nose is clean...

Definitely not foam or sealer as I put it all together.

It's not salt... So the mystery continues for now.

All removed from the entrance of the air box cover & intake ducting replaced, all ship shape & Bristol fashion for now...

[theelanman]

if the filter is clean....then that's just plain odd

[theelanman]

I just wonder if the corrugated pipe was lined with a waxy lining (if it was a card/paper type).....
and is the bit that runs round where the radiator is has melted..........

all stabs in the dark.......very much so......

[Chancer]

I have seen that before and my distant memory is telling me it was in an intake trunking and more to the point in exactly the same place.

Is it a dust that has solidified with some greasy or liquid deposit?

If so then I can recall something similar where fine dust, plaster dust, cement from a race track o?l Spill, I cant recall what so am guessing but it built up in the same area probably where there is low pressure due to disrupted airflow from a sleeve joint.

Now I cant recall if it was on one of my vehicles, my workshop extraction system or maybe one of the shop vacs, it may come to me.

If it is homogenous like you describe, a sealant of some sort and you did not put it there then its a real mystery.

Try and describe it a little better.

[Chancer]

I have recalled, it was after discharging a dry powder extinguisher on an engine fire!!!!!!!

Ring any bells?

If not a fire extinguisher then I would say that the engine has been run or started in an atmosphere of very fine dust, has it been in a body shop perhaps, filler dust? Whatever the dust it subsequently solidified with moisture from the inrake air on wet days.

[pharriso]

I have recalled, it was after discharging a dry powder extinguisher on an engine fire!!!!!!!

Ring any bells?

Fortunately nothing like that has happened...

I am traveling again, but at the weekend I will cut the old duct open & take some close up shots.