Hey everyone,
I was driving in the city at about 20mph when something started reeking of burning oil, so i looked at my oil pressure gauge and watched it very slowly dip down. I pulled in to a parking lot before the needle could go all the way down and shut the car off, engine still ran fine with no funny sounds. Popped the hood and saw oil sprayed all over everything under the hood, steaming off the hot engine. There was a trickle trail of oil from the road to the parking lot and then a puddle formed where i parked as everything dripped off. The failure appeared to be in the right/middle side of the engine bay (from driver’s seat perspective) as there was more oil sprayed in that area and on the right front wheel/right side and middle of the axle. I had it towed home and then had a closer look, where i found that my oil filter seal appears to have failed and popped out on one side of the filter. This is an OEM toyota filter (small YZZD3 one, first time i’ve used it instead of big WIX XP) and i changed the oil 500 miles ago wtih Rotella 15W-40. I suspect I must have failed to tighten down the filter adequately, as I kind of had the suspicion in my mind that I didnt do so right after i changed the oil. I’ve attached a picture of the filter seal popped out. Not sure if it’s just popped out or broke on one side or what. So I will replace the filter tomorrow and add back the oil that was lost, and clean up the engine bay and undercarriage (yay). The questions are: is it possible that anything under the hood got damaged from the spraying of hot oil? What should I check? And it seems clear that the filter gasket failed but is it because i undertightened it or because oil pressure spiked somehow? How should I go about that possibility? I did take it offroading yesterday and went through some pretty deep puddles with adequate speed, if that affects anything. Everything was fine afterwards though. Also, this is a 3FE, not 1UZ.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
I was driving in the city at about 20mph when something started reeking of burning oil, so i looked at my oil pressure gauge and watched it very slowly dip down. I pulled in to a parking lot before the needle could go all the way down and shut the car off, engine still ran fine with no funny sounds. Popped the hood and saw oil sprayed all over everything under the hood, steaming off the hot engine. There was a trickle trail of oil from the road to the parking lot and then a puddle formed where i parked as everything dripped off. The failure appeared to be in the right/middle side of the engine bay (from driver’s seat perspective) as there was more oil sprayed in that area and on the right front wheel/right side and middle of the axle. I had it towed home and then had a closer look, where i found that my oil filter seal appears to have failed and popped out on one side of the filter. This is an OEM toyota filter (small YZZD3 one, first time i’ve used it instead of big WIX XP) and i changed the oil 500 miles ago wtih Rotella 15W-40. I suspect I must have failed to tighten down the filter adequately, as I kind of had the suspicion in my mind that I didnt do so right after i changed the oil. I’ve attached a picture of the filter seal popped out. Not sure if it’s just popped out or broke on one side or what. So I will replace the filter tomorrow and add back the oil that was lost, and clean up the engine bay and undercarriage (yay). The questions are: is it possible that anything under the hood got damaged from the spraying of hot oil? What should I check? And it seems clear that the filter gasket failed but is it because i undertightened it or because oil pressure spiked somehow? How should I go about that possibility? I did take it offroading yesterday and went through some pretty deep puddles with adequate speed, if that affects anything. Everything was fine afterwards though. Also, this is a 3FE, not 1UZ.
Thanks in advance for any insight.