Did I just blow my engine?

[Damcowboy]

Absolutely wild that this is still happening. If I were running a company that made oil filters, it would take precisely one failure like this before I did everything I could to fix the problem. Guess I'm not "smart" enough to be a modern CEO...

Go after them. You're not just doing it for you.

I'll go after them.

If they had a hand in blowing my engine on a vehicle I have saved for and tried to find for over a decade they will answer for it.

 

[Damcowboy]

@Damcowboy : Have you tried to restart the engine yet ie: without removing/touching anything? Are the wires to the oil sending unit
still connected? (don't touch anything)

Because this seemed to occur right after filling up your fuel tank you might consider also having the shop drain a few ounces of gasoline from the fuel tank
and send that for analysis also.

Only thing that doesn't seem to go with an engine being starved for oil is this statement: "the engine (transmission) started to drop a gear and rev to around 4,000 rpm"

Seems like if an engine was seizing up from being overheated or damaged by lack of oil it would slow down, start knocking maybe, but not speed up?? IDK

Either way I agree with what others have said, let a Toyota Dealer Service Dept document everything as mentioned above.

I have not touched the engine since I pulled over when this first all happened.

With regards to dropping a gear I think what was happening was the cruise control was on, so the engine was being "told" to maintain speed at 70 mph. IF the engine was starting to cease then it couldn't operate to maintain the 70 mph, so the transmission dropped a gear to rev higher to increase speed to get back up to 70 mph, but it couldn't do it. So the engine WAS slowing down as you would expect, the cruise control was trying to get it to speed up again.

 

[SNLC]

At least look at the oil pressure sending unit and make sure the wire didn’t fall off.

Cheers

 

[White Stripe]

I would say the hill, gear the transmission gear, and cruise control is irrelevant. You were driving and lost oil pressure is the important part.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Tough spot to be in.
This thread has gone to the worst possible scenario straight away.

I'd be trying to figure out what the problem is, there's been no diagnosis done, and the talk is straight into lawyering up.
If the guys are right about the WIX then investigating may not be in your best interest.
If it's something else, are you on the hook for a legal retainer/ fees??

The no oil pressure is obviously a concern. Is it the cause or the result?
The WIX is ball puckering for sure, but may be a false alarm.

What's up with the belts? Can't see how that's related to oil filter/ oil pressure.

The belts don't run on the idler. It's not an Idler in the typical sense. When the belts are adjusted, they don't actually touch the Idler. They bump against it during operation.

If there's an issue with the belts and water pump not getting drive, you could very easily cook an engine in a few minutes pulling 70mph on the interstate. If the ambient air temp is low, you'd get a bit longer out of it.

I completely cooked and siezed my hzj105 diesel less than 15 minutes from cold start. 10 minutes driving at 40mph, less than 5 minutes at 70mph.
Pulled over for gas, as I pulled up at the pump, the engine stalled and siezed, and then steam came out, and it puked oil and water from the side of the head where head gasket had let go.
There was no sign of anything wrong prior to this. No change in power, no movement of the temperature gauge.

 

[effjay80]

These threads are like steven king horror novels. Very sorry and hope get everything sorted out okay.

 

[Damcowboy]

Tough spot to be in.
This thread has gone to the worst possible scenario straight away.

I'd be trying to figure out what the problem is, there's been no diagnosis done, and the talk is straight into lawyering up.
If the guys are right about the WIX then investigating may not be in your best interest.
If it's something else, are you on the hook for a legal retainer/ fees??

The no oil pressure is obviously a concern. Is it the cause or the result?
The WIX is ball puckering for sure, but may be a false alarm.

What's up with the belts? Can't see how that's related to oil filter/ oil pressure.

The belts don't run on the idler. It's not an Idler in the typical sense. When the belts are adjusted, they don't actually touch the Idler. They bump against it during operation.

If there's an issue with the belts and water pump not getting drive, you could very easily cook an engine in a few minutes pulling 70mph on the interstate. If the ambient air temp is low, you'd get a bit longer out of it.

I completely cooked and siezed my hzj105 diesel less than 15 minutes from cold start. 10 minutes driving at 40mph, less than 5 minutes at 70mph.
Pulled over for gas, as I pulled up at the pump, the engine stalled and siezed, and then steam came out, and it puked oil and water from the side of the head where head gasket had let go.
There was no sign of anything wrong prior to this. No change in power, no movement of the temperature gauge.

I just dont know

 

[mudgudgeon]

I just dont know

I hear yah!

Think on it for a bit.

If you think lawyering up is the way to go, start looking for the right person to help, and pepper them with questions before you touch anything or commit to anything

 

[Fj80oregon]

@SNLC is right on this check you wiring to the sender they get brittle and the little buttons can pop off the sender. It won’t change anything except maybe save you some headache. Let’s go back to not the worst case scenario. Maybe your belts are old and when the pieces went missing one of them Hit the sender wiring and nothing is wrong at all except a wire is disconnected and you need some new belts. . If you truly lost oil pressure your motor would be seized in less than 30 seconds ask me how I know.

 

[Damcowboy]

@SNLC is right on this check you wiring to the sender they get brittle and the little buttons can pop off the sender. It won’t change anything except maybe save you some headache. Let’s go back to not the worst case scenario. Maybe your belts are old and when the pieces went missing one of them Hit the sender wiring and nothing is wrong at all except a wire is disconnected and you need some new belts. . If you truly lost oil pressure your motor would be seized in less than 30 seconds ask me how I know.

You could be right. there is conflicting dta i cant interpret. If the engine wasn't affected why couldn't I go faster than 64ish mph? But then again I drove it with the issue happening for at least 30 seconds, and likely much longer, before I noticed the oil pressure was buried at zero. And how does the broken idler pulley and messed up belts play into all this? And there is now a small leak at the oil pan that was not there when I started the trip 6 hours before? Was that caused by a build up of pressure resulting from oil not being able to circulate past the oil filter? I don't know, I am not that familiar with how all the various parts of a Toyota engine works. A windsor 351 is more my wheelhouse.

I cant get a lawyer to even return my calls so the odds are whatever happened it will be on me to pay for it. Which is probably why they wont return my calls. In the legal world $10K is peanuts. The retainer is probably $5k alone.

 

[Damcowboy]

I don't know how much work I can do on it before I totally kill my chances of getting anything from WIX (likely cant get anything from them anyway). As of now I have not touched anything since I pulled over onto the highway. My engineering brain is screaming at me to get after it and start to fix it.

 

[SNLC]

Try to turn it over by hand.

Cheers

 

[Fj80oregon]

I am very familiar with these engines I rebuild and sell them. Let’s talk about it. The idler could have been failing and like stated before has no effect on the belts and many run with out it. The belts could have been old and separated or maybe your water pump pulley is loose? And they were not riding correctly. The small leak could have always been there and you driving for 6 hours with the heat cycles caused it to open up a little bit. As far as the acceleration issue I’m stumped on that low oil pressure would not affect that, be vacuum leaks or transmission related. Oil pressure is built by the oil pump which is gear driven by the crank which is held in place with the crank bolt torqued to 304 ft lbs.

 

[Fj80oregon]

I don't know how much work I can do on it before I totally kill my chances of getting anything from WIX (likely cant get anything from them anyway). As of now I have not touched anything since I pulled over onto the highway. My engineering brain is screaming at me to get after it and start to fix it.

Check your wiring at the sender like said before this will rule that out. Like @SNLC said grab a 30mm socket and go from the bottom you’ll have to pull your splash pan 4 12mm bolts. You can spin the fan and turn it with the ratchet to rotate the engine clockwise to see if it’s spinning freely you will have some resistance due to plugs being in and compression.

 

[Damcowboy]

OK, I'll tackle the suggestions you guys have made, good stuff there.

 

[Damcowboy]

Check your wiring at the sender like said before this will rule that out. Like @SNLC said grab a 30mm socket and go from the bottom you’ll have to pull your splash pan 4 12mm bolts. You can spin the fan and turn it with the ratchet to rotate the engine clockwise to see if it’s spinning freely you will have some resistance due to plugs being in and compression.

odd but I don't have a splash pan, that's probably something I need to get when this is all said and done.

 

[mudgudgeon]

I think you are looking for answers and have lumped possibly unrelated things all into one basket.

Belts.
If they've twisted and not driving the fan/water pump, you may have an overheat scenario.
An overheated engine can partly sieze and lose power. If it's shut off quickly and not flogged, you may have avoided serious damage.

Overheating can happen without the gauge hitting the red.

Idler pulley.
Its misnamed, it's not actually an Idler. When belts are tensioned correctly, they don't contact that Idler. When the engine is running, they'll bump it occasionally. It's there to reduce belts slapping around.
I don't think the Idler is part of the problems at all.

Oil.
Dump the oil into a clean bucket, if it looks clean, you might be good. Send a sample off to Blackstone Labs for analysis. They'll tell you if there's bearing metal, or coolant contamination.
If it's sparkling or got large flakes in it, your bearings are probably toast.

Oil pressure gauge.
As stated, some simple testing can confirm or eliminate the sender and gauge as part of the equation.

Leaking sump
Could be completely unrelated. Coincidence.
Or, a clue to what happened
Is it definitely a leak at the sump, or higher up?
When i cooked my 1HZ, the head gasket let go badly and puked oil and coolant out the side of the head/block. Looked catastrophic, but was just a small part of the big picture.

Siezed engine?
As stated, try running it over by hand using a socket wrench DO NOT bump the starter.
I would spend five minutes and remove all the spark plugs. With the plugs out, if should turn over easily and smoothly. If it takes a lot of effort, or doesn't rotate smoothly, you can assume you have an issue with the bottom end, or rings.

The WIX may be the sole cause of your problems, could also be 100% functioning as normal and be unrelated.

All of the above is zero dollars to investigate with the exception of $35 for oil analysis.
Vs
$5-10k legal retainer, may be more in costs, with no promise you get anything back.

That's the cost of a fresh engine IF that's what's needed.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Put you engineers brain to this.
Start with what you do know.
Then work one problem at a time. Confirm or eliminate causes one by one

 

[BTLSHP]

I am way behind on this thread and not much of an expert....but I think back to my harmonic balancer failure. When I figured it out the car had completed a 100 mile trip the night before and I was chasing strange voltages on a little display in the car (tire pressure). I looked in and saw misaligned and twisted belts, then saw the HB extended out from the engine block. Oil pressure is an IDK for me, but our sender failed 4 months ago. And the pump mechanism is robust.

 

[Damcowboy]

I think you are looking for answers and have lumped possibly unrelated things all into one basket.

Belts.
If they've twisted and not driving the fan/water pump, you may have an overheat scenario.
An overheated engine can partly sieze and lose power. If it's shut off quickly and not flogged, you may have avoided serious damage.

Overheating can happen without the gauge hitting the red.

As far as I know it was not overheating, no pinging or steam when I popped the hood.

Idler pulley.
Its misnamed, it's not actually an Idler. When belts are tensioned correctly, they don't contact that Idler. When the engine is running, they'll bump it occasionally. It's there to reduce belts slapping around.
I don't think the Idler is part of the problems at all.

OK, I don't doubt that's possible, I have new belts I'll switch them out.

Oil.
Dump the oil into a clean bucket, if it looks clean, you might be good. Send a sample off to Blackstone Labs for analysis. They'll tell you if there's bearing metal, or coolant contamination.
If it's sparkling or got large flakes in it, your bearings are probably toast.

I actually have a test kit from them on the work bench, I'll use it now.

Oil pressure gauge.
As stated, some simple testing can confirm or eliminate the sender and gauge as part of the equation.

I will check the sender contacts, I also have a new sender I can install if it looks like it needs it.

Leaking sump
Could be completely unrelated. Coincidence.
Or, a clue to what happened
Is it definitely a leak at the sump, or higher up?

its at the first joint between the lowest oil pan and whatever it bolts to.

When i cooked my 1HZ, the head gasket let go badly and puked oil and coolant out the side of the head/block. Looked catastrophic, but was just a small part of the big picture.

No visible signs of a nuked engine, it all looks good.

Siezed engine?
As stated, try running it over by hand using a socket wrench DO NOT bump the starter.
I would spend five minutes and remove all the spark plugs. With the plugs out, if should turn over easily and smoothly. If it takes a lot of effort, or doesn't rotate smoothly, you can assume you have an issue with the bottom end, or rings.

Will do.

The WIX may be the sole cause of your problems, could also be 100% functioning as normal and be unrelated.

agreed, I sure as s*** hope so.

All of the above is zero dollars to investigate with the exception of $35 for oil analysis.
Vs
$5-10k legal retainer, may be more in costs, with no promise you get anything back.

yup

That's the cost of a fresh engine IF that's what's needed.

Thats why i don't think I will get anywhere going that route.