Oil Change Disaster (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Threads
13
Messages
74
Location
Stuttgart, Germany
As the name of the post implies, I set out last Friday morning to change out my air filter, oil filter / engine oil, and diesel filter on my euro spec 1991 HDJ80, with 300,000 kilometres (186,500 miles) on the odometer. It had been at least two years since my last oil change, but I don't drive it every day- Stuttgart, Germany frowns upon Euro Category 1-2 diesel engines. I made sure that the oil level has always been right, especially after sorting out a front crankshaft seal that had me pretty steadily dripping. I also went with 15W-40 Shell, which was a bit thicker than the 10W-40 previously running in it. I also added Lucas Enging oil stabilizer. The results were not good. I had to back out of my barely fitting German garage to change the oil, and then I pulled back into the garage, cleaned up my tools and cleaned up for some errands.
When I returned to the garage to take the eco-mobile out, I noticed that there was a lake underneath the 80. I went out for dry sweep, backed the truck out, cleaned up the garage floor, topped off the motor oil again, tightened the oil filter, and pulled back in a second time- dumping another quart of oil on the garage floor.

And, oh yes, the oil drain plug on the oil pan was snug and not leaking a bit.

I've never seen that much oil come out of an engine- it's almost as if a plug or hose popped out and the oil came out under pressure. I can't imagine a gasket failing that completely; any idea what could have caused this?

Thanks much for any insight,
"Scared S%$#ess in Stuttgart"
 
You can only clean it up and watch it come back. You have only touched the filter and sump plug, if it wasn't leaking before, it must be coming from one of those 2 places.

How much oil did you put in it?
 
Approximately 12 liters of oil. What I am most worried about is having blown a hard to reach seal or gasket that will require gratuitous amounts of $$$ to repair. There are darned few shade tree mechanics in Germany....
I will re-check the oil filter for any damage; have not done that yet. Do you think that the seal on the oil pan could have gone?
 
I only put about 9.5 litres into a 1HZ. What is you dipstick saying?
Sump gaskets just dont open up just like that.
You need to clean it up and get the correct amount of oil in it
 
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I had TWO oil filter gaskets blow consecutively on an oil change once. They were the NAPA GOLD filters,
and on one the flaw was obvious, the second no idea? It drained all the oil from my 12HT. It was a mess!
So I would replace the filter. NAPA was nice enough to refund me for one of the oil amounts, but not both.
 
Gentlemen, I think you all for your comments and here is the deal after re-looking the oil filter in the garage just now. It seems that the old oil filter O-ring was still hanging out between the new oil filter and the fitting. I didn’t notice it when I pulled the old filter off spun the new filter on until it was tight not knowing there is a nice gap down there. I feel like if nothing else, I have contributed to a really dumb automotive maintenance story…
 
I only put about 9.5 litres into a 1HZ. What is you dipstick saying?
Sump gaskets just dont open up just like that.
You need to clean it up and get the correct amount of oil in it
I bought three 3.75 liter jugs from the base auto shop. After two of them in, I started checking the dip stick. I went with 15W40; think that will do? All in all, I estimate 10-11 gallons of oil.
 
Since I've screwed up about everything there is to screw up....I always make it a habit to wipe off the oil filter mount before installing a new filter. There's never really any dirt there but it's a good visual check in ant event. Glad you got it figured out before you got tagged with an environmental violation.
 
Since I've screwed up about everything there is to screw up....I always make it a habit to wipe off the oil filter mount before installing a new filter. There's never really any dirt there but it's a good visual check in ant event. Glad you got it figured out before you got tagged with an environmental violation.
I spoke with my mechanic buddy Gerhard; he's made this same mistake as well. He's also got me a bucket of drysweep handy...
 
While I'm at it, does anyone have any good tips on getting a large motor oil stain off of a concrete garage floor?


Its clean oil , so a degreaser will work. Hot water lifts it up.
 
Cat litter works great for soaking up oil spills and it's cheap, comes in 50lbs bags, and can be bought just about at any grocery store if there's no pet store around. Brake cleaner will work wonders at getting the remnants out of the concrete.

Had a similar but unrelated oil spill kinda like yours. I performed a typical oil change interval on my old car one time. I started the engine and listened at how smooth it sounded...for the first 10-15 seconds, then it went from gas engine to diesel engine idle instantly. While pondering this with the car running I look straight ahead, from the driver's seat, to my work bench and there's the new oil filter. :oops: I pumped the entire contents of my new engine oil (Mobil 1) onto the floor.

Anyway on another note. I would recommend using 9.5L to 10L, max, of new oil when doing your lube service. I find that 11L is a bit too much.
 

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