ha, i just read up on a few different website that had info on too much engine oil in the engine. A few sites scared me, a few confimed my thoughts. Heres what i got so far.
What happens when an engine is overfilled with oil?
So you topped up the engine when it was warm after getting a faulty dipstick reading, or you put too much oil in when you changed it yourself. What's the worst that could happen? Well the problem with this is that the next time the engine is run, the windage in the crankcase and other pressures generated by the oil pump, etc. place a great strain on the seal on the rear main bearing.
Eventually, often much sooner than the ordinary man in the street might expect, the rear main bearing seal ruptures, and the engine becomes a 'leaker'. If you've got a manual gearbox, this means one thing: this oil goes right onto the flywheel and the face of the clutch disc. A lubricated clutch is A Bad Thing. If this still goes unnoticed, the front seal is the next to go, and the engine then becomes a 'gusher' (or to be more colourful, it starts pissing oil all over the place). As well as smothering the clutch with oil from the rear, the oil now coming from the front leak will be neatly distributed about the engine bay as it hits the front pulley - often propelling it out as far as the brake discs. At the same time as this Hollywood disaster movie is unfolding outside the engine, things aren't working out any better on the inside. As you can see from the diagram, the correct oil level is really close to the rotating crank. Overfilling will mean the crank dips into the oil and churns it into a froth. Froth is good on certain types of coffee but not good in an engine. The mixture of aerated oil will be forced into the bearings and in case you didn't know, air is not a lubricant. Typically this means that bearing damage will follow quite rapidly, especially if you are driving on a motorway. You'll know bearing damage when you get it. The engine smells like a garage mechanic cooking over an open flame and the noise coming from the engine is the sort of thing you'd normally hear in vaudeville plays when a piano is pushed down a flight of stairs. As if that all wasn't bad enough, the excess oil gets thrown up into the piston bores where the piston rings have a hard time coping with the excess oil and pressure. It gets into the combustion chamber and some of it will get out into the exhaust system unburned resulting in a nice patina of oil all over the platinum surfaces of your catalytic converter. This renders it utterly useless for good.
Well, you did ask.
Well as long as my bearings arent shot, i think if i just do a leak down test and a head rebuild i should be ok. But if im looking at doing bearings, i mine as well tear down the whole engine and rebuild it completely. And i dont have the time or money for that. Is there anyway to tell if the bearings are shot? Besides taking off the crank and measuring clearance? It didnt mention anything in there about wearing down the rings, but it did say too much oil will result in miss lubrication, which could have messed up my rings. Although i dont think it had too much oil in the engine for more than a few days since i blew my oil pump seal which drained almost all the oil on the way home from work. So it wasnt under that condition for very long.
I should mention the engine runs almost normal besides burning oil and idling rough at start up, which could also be a cause of the IC and intake having oil in it. Also theres a slight miss at low RPM's but once i hit 2k rpm's it goes away. That could also just be a plug fouled out.
|