Father-in-law recently changed the oil in his escort. However, its the first time he's done it himself and he kept pouring it in at the top and dipping to get the level straight away without letting it settle.

By the time he'd worked out that he'd over filled it by "a couple of pints" he had to go to work.

Thinking it wouldnt do any harm because, after all, we all know that too little oil causes problems.

However, on his way to work the engine stopped.

Mother-in-law claims too much oil has made this happen, but I've kept out of it.

What normall happens when someone over-fills engine oil ??

I doubt very much the engine would 'stop' by over filling a couple of pints.. maybe if he brimmed it, it would cause some issues.

When i have filled an engine with too much oil, The Car burns more to get the excess stuff out, so this equals more smoke out of the exhaust. Cant image that it would make it stop though........

Just read on the web that in some engines, the oil pressure can get too high and crack the crank case.

If you think about it what damage can it cause?

All you have in your sump is an oil pickup which will take only what the engine needs.. and the crank spinning around and more oil wont pose a problem for that. The pistons will be splash cooled by the crank and a bit more oil wont effect that very much so what can really go wrong other than burning a bit off?

Just read on the web that in some engines, the oil pressure can get too high and crack the crank case.

How much pressure do you think it would take to crack a lump of cast iron? A hell of alot.. and if you have ever seen an engine with a structural crack you will know about it!!

Is it a carb version of the escort engine.

I stripped and repaired a fiesta, and the engine had regularly been overfilled by about a pint by what the girl who i bought if from for £50 said.

In this the excess oil had made it into the engine pots, and had also come out of the breather hose (probably mainly vapour) and filled the carb up with nast oily deposits. The engine was firing on 2/3 cylinders at best and so a chat with a friendly engine reconditioner got a good as new engine for almost no cahs in exchange for the old one.

I'd say a couple of pints could easily break the engine, however I would think it would probably be a more gradual process unless a lot of it git into the engine all at the same time.

Either way if he had overfilled it how difficult would it have been to put the pan under the car, slacken the sump plug and take a pint out then check it quickly. IT's a 5 minute job tops.

It is a carb'd engine.

I was suprised to read about crank case craking too, I woul dhave thought the head gasket woul dhave gone way before the pressure got that high ?

This morning there is a substantial puddle of oil under the car.

HAd this on the ex-wife's XR3i. I overfilled that with oil when the oil pressure warning light came on (usually when it is 1l too low) so I lobbed a litre in. About 10 miles down the road it did it again, so in went another 1l of oil.

About 2 miles down the road; oil warning light, clouds of smoke and one dead engine.

Turns out my oil pump had packed up (hence the oil pressure warning light). Lots of metal floating around inside the sump when we took it off.

I think the reason the engine probably stopped was due to the oil getting into the breather system and being drawn into the cylinders coating the spark plugs with oil.

If you really go overboard on overfilling its possible you could cause the crank and big ends to have to dunk under the oil as the cranks shaft rotates and going from air into a thick viscous oil and back into air, into oil etc. etc. . at a min of 1000 rpm may cause shock loading on the crankshaft and the possiblility of crank failure or even cracking the casing (highly unlikey unless you have put in double the oil .!!) but the crank will certainly churn the oil up enough to send some 'neat oil' up the breather pipes (as found by my mate who once put nearly 10 litres into his Metro!!)

IMMHO Regarding the crankcase cracking etc , Pressure wise the first thing that should go would be the casing blanking plugs which would pop out, head gaskets are designed to run at well over 200psi on a petrol engine.

I'll suggest he cleans the breather pipes and changes the plugs then

Before he changes the plugs get some redX and follow the instructions for using it in the carb directly and then in the cylinders directly. Works well, but you will get a v big plume of smoke out of the exhaust as the oil etc goes bye bye. Then change the plugs after he has done this so the new plugs don't get a coating of crud on them.

Also get the breather hoses and carb housing off and use brake/clutch cleaner or similar and washing the hose out well with soapy water and dried out give it a quick flush with this stuff.

The other thing the fiesta engine had a real knack of doing with any amount of over oil is the rocker cover gasket. It's a cork thing on the car i did up and about a 2 minute job to change. Too much oil meant that some got out of this, and as soon as any oil had got between the cork and the rocker cover, that was it it would keep pi$$ing out of there. If you do change it get the genuine ford part as iirc it is only about 50p more than the knock off part and a much much better fit.

My dealer overfilled at the last service. Oil level WAY above maximum on the dipstick. For a few weeks afterwards i kept getting oil forcing it's way out of the filler cap.

It made me panic at first but after it a while it stopped doing it (when the dipstick level was on maximum) and no problems for 5000 miles.

You will get a variety of effects.

1. Oil will be forced out via the breather system and be burnt in the engine. Depending on the extent to which this happens you will either get a black oily deposit in your cylinders and on your plugs, or in an extreme case you could get enough oil into a cylinder to cause it to jam hydraulically. Likely result - bent conrod (or cracked cylinder - did you know you can crack an engine block by leaving oil in the cylinder head stud holes, and then tightening down the studs onto the oil? Hydraulic pressure then cracks the head - quite easily).

2. If you overfill it to the point where the crank is dipping in the oil, the result will be oil foaming - the crank mixes air bubbles into the oil. In severe cases this causes the oil pickup to start picking up air instead of oil and feeding it to the bearings. Then your engine seizes.

Let's hope it's the first one. First of all suggest he gets rid of the excess oil if it's still substantially above the "max" mark.

Overfilling the engine oil isnt a good idea.

At the least it wil back up through the breather system and into the exhaust damaging the cat (hence the warning on the filler cap).

At worst if enough oil is injested the bore will fill up with it, unable to compress oil like air usually the con rod either bends or exits stage front.

I should point out again that I had nothing to do with this!

I should point out again that I had nothing to do with this!

He he, but with this, sticking feet through ceilings etc your family life is somewhat of a calamity

Still it makes me chuckle so it aint all bad.

Father-in-law also recently had 3 of his prized koi stabbed to death by the herron.

As an aside if following the instructions on red x iirc it says topour red x into spark plug apertures then cover and turn engine over. DON'T have anyone standing in front of car at this point as they will be coated in red x and petrol, especially if you cove with a cloth the size of an hanky :lol:

I used a bundled up old T-shirt, works an absolubt treat at cleaning the things out.

IIRC it also says to do one plug at a time doesn't it?

When you pour it into the running carb watch for the nice plume of smoke containing whatever **** was in your engine before. It's perty :P

Some kind of squeezy bottle is good for the direct into the carb method - you don't need a huge amount, just squirt, then blip the throttle to burn the RedeX and carp, then repeat.

The new RedX bottles are now sqeezy type are they not. Just amke sure you pic up the RED-X for carbs rather than injector engines (assuming they still do it).

As for burning carp, i dread to think how long it would take to get rid of the fishy odour :P

Father-in-law also recently had 3 of his prized koi stabbed to death by the herron.

And your new pride and joy is currently residing Where????

Kathy

Hi

The overfill can cause a variety of problems.

Easiest and cheapest to fix is if it has backed up in the breather system and pooled oil up the top end. The pooling and extra pressure at the top will force oil out of the rocker cover. This may also have forced oil into the cylinders causing the sparks to be extinguished. Clean breather system, take plugs out and spin the engine over a while, plugs cleaned and back in and see if it runs. Because the oil has not been burnt on over a long period, it will probably burn off itself. A redex chamber soak may be needed if the engine is pinking (caused by hard oily deposits glowing and preigniting the mix). If you ingnore the pinking and it is running very smoky under hard load, the combustion temps can go very high indeed and potentially hole a piston crown.

A bit more oil and the pressure beneath the cylinders will go up considerably, again filling the breather system with oil potentially. Also, incerased crankcase pressure may blow the crank end oil seals. I reckon you need to overfill quite a bit to do that though.

Even more oil and you can hydraulic the engine. From the top if it sucks in a big lungful of oil, underneath if it is filled so much that there is insufficient clearance for the pistons to move. Car would most likely not start under these conditions.

Chris