Firey death ball!

dannyboy24, Mar 31, 4:45pm
Hello i have a crappy old 84 ford lazer hatchback that i dearly love because it has never ever let me down despite my absolute lack of maintainence/mechanical skills. I check the oil at warrant time which happened to be this afternoon and it was very very low in fact none showing on the stickso splashed out on a 4litre oilpack. My well meaning workmate put it in for me while i was on the phone but tipped the whole lot in (4 litres) which has brought the level about twice as far up the stick as the "full" mark.
He is adamant that its fine but im not sure. Is it ok or will my car explode in a Bruce Willis style "Firey death ball"!
Thanks
bdogg1, Mar 31, 4:54pm
More importantly, did you get your WOF!
dannyboy24, Mar 31, 5:06pm
yip flew thru the warrant but seriously will it be ok!
intrade, Mar 31, 5:10pm
na drain some off it be blowing oil out everywhere. and you should change the oil filter also. minimum to maximum is only 1 liter.
intrade, Mar 31, 5:12pm
maybe you or your mate should not do anything .get somone with a clue to change the filter and drain some oil.
ginga4lyfe, Mar 31, 6:05pm
excessive amounts of oil causes lots of problems, I would drain some off
dannyboy24, Mar 31, 6:33pm
god dam what a disaster the one timetry do do something cool for my car i've overdone it
jmma, Mar 31, 7:43pm
Hmm, you could leave it then you wont have to check it for 2 wofs (o:
Seriously, drain some out!
unideck, Mar 31, 11:12pm
That just made my day intrade, brilliant wording, your English is getting way better these days lmao
socram, Apr 1, 7:01am
Remember the original Austin 1800 Landcrab! Most of the early engine problems were caused by an incorrectly calibrated dipstick, meaning too much oil.

However, suggest you don't use the same 'friend' for draining out the excess.
richardmayes, Apr 1, 11:26am
All of the vital working parts of your engine are lubricated by oil that has been pressurized by the oil pump. The oil pump gets its supply of oil to do this, fromthe pool of surplus oil that is sitting in the sump at the bottom of the engine. As long as the pump's intake pipe is submerged in the oil, you would think the pump would continue to draw its normal flow of oil to lubricate the bearings and keep the engine alive.

The pool of oil in the bottom of the sump is not pressurised, so I would not have thought an excess of oil sitting down there it would put any great strain on any seals it is exposed to, but then I'm not really a mechanic with much experience of these things.

If the pool of oil in the sump was really excessively too deep, the cranks might start to become submerged, leading to a whole lot of splashing inside there, makes a mess of your engine room and a lovely oily smell if it starts coming up and out the dipstick tube. Probably soaks up a bit of power too in theory.

But then, I doubt that the factory engraved that "Full" mark onto the dipstick for no reason!

[An actual mechanic with practical experience of over-filled engines might want to correct my theoretical opinion of all this :-P ]
socram, Sep 17, 6:11am
From memory, I think that the crank thrashing about in the oil can create one set of problems and there may be problems forcing oil up the bores.No doubta mechanic will know, but I do know that they resolved most issues on the 1800 by taking a litre or so out.