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Overfilling an engine with oil


Dirty Den

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I know that you should not do this, as utimately oil will exit from the oil seals, but I'd like to know how long it is before this happens, and what is involved in putting the damage right?

 

I realise that this is a 'how long is a piece of string?' type question, but I'm just curious. I guess that the time it takes for the seals to go also depends upon how hard the car is driven, how much the oil was overfilled by in the first place, etc?

 

TIA,

 

Den

 

😬 - Self portrait - still unable to remove the smile!

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As I understand it, one of the biggest problems is with the pistons hitting the top of the fluid. With fluid being incompressible be definition, you have a situation with a fast moving object hitting a solid incompressible surface. The rest is history

 

Low tech luddite - xflow and proud!

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Graham, If the pistons hit the oil you have are really ini it *eek*.

The issue is the crank dipping into the oil and throwing it up the cylinder walls etc; refered to as 'windage' in the normal sense of the word. Seals are no more likely to leak because of excess oil, more a case of oil being forced out of the breather system (whether it be closed or open).

In short, don't overfill.

 

Steve B

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Depending on which engine it is, the results can be much more serious. In some engines the crank will froth the oil and the hydraulic cam followers collapse. This has serious repercussions *eek*. On the other hand, when I overfilled my old golf (solid followers), it all came out of the exhaust as dirty great clouds of smoke.

 

*cool* 99,000 miles so far

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