Wierd oil prob.

[Bryan Williams]

I am on hols at the moment camping in Wales,my daughter and her fella joined us for a couple of days.
So they go off shopping, I get a call to say that his car id playing up.. they are about 4 miles away.
It's a Citroen c3 03 diesel 1.4,it smokes badly.

He was reversing and it stalled,wouldn't start again, they left it ten minutes,it starts and gets them back to the campsite.
I have a look, the belts ok,nothing obviously loose or broke,pull the dipstick, there's NOTHING on it..
I give an oil lecture.
Next morning it's still dry,so nothing has drained down overnight
Today I go and get 5ltrs,put a ltr in,does not show on the dipstick,bung another ltr in,wait 5mins still nothing but a couple of mil on it.
Now her fellas paranoid that I am going to overfill it and blow the seals, but my thinking is that we should try to put the correct amount of oil in ,which is 3.8ltrs.
In the end I put 3.5 in.
Stand around ten minutes , it's showing just about ten mil on the dipstick, I even have a look underneath for leaks.
We decide to go have a coffee .
Come back a good 1/2 hour later, check it ,its up past the max on the dipstick by I reckon a good 1/2 ltr.
I'm popular.
So I'm considering draining a bit out, I've got spanners.
But first I phone my mechanic mate,he advises don't panic,loosen the oil filler cap to stop pressure, but then revises this saying it might blow oil out so just pull the dipstick out so it doesn't seal, this will stop pressure building up.
I do this ,they got home okay .
My mate reckons the engine is probably goosed but might benefit from a flush,it probably wasn't starting due to oil starvation and they were lucky.
Any thoughts as to why first it managed to get from Chester to Builth Wells without blowing up,why the oil took so long to show up on the dipstick and why even though I only put 3.5 in it eventually looked well past full on the dipstick when it takes 3.8?
They're home with no issues,told him to keep an eye on the oil and properly seat the dipstick once it's burnt the excess oil ,which shouldn't be long.
Cheers.

 

[Farside]

I wouldn't worry about it too long, as it will probably start dieseling in its own oil and run itself to destruction. When a diesel starts burning a lot of oil, be careful.
If it's burning oil through a leaky turbo bearing seal...

 

[Bryan Williams]

Yep I had a runaway engine once, don't think this one is a turbo tho

 

[wristpin]

Not sure if relevant to this situation but we had a Citroen Relay van that on the first pull of the dipstick after standing showed B - all oil, but when replaced and pulled again, the correct level

 

[Ton-up]

Probably not relavent either, but it's common for the oil/no oil on dipstick on LR Tdi's as the dipstick tube comes loose in the block.

 

[wyn]

I always do the dipstick twice...never go off the first one.

 

[angellonewolf]

when i over filled the oil i poped in to halfords quick fit place bloke walked out with a pump and a thin tube on it pulled the dipstick droped the tube down the dipstick hole pumped a few times done total cost they would not even take money i turned back up with cakes

when i took it in to a garage before halfords they wanted to drain the oil and refill at the cost of i think £75

 

[Bryan Williams]

When I top up my T4 it shows straight away,won wondering if these c3 have narrow oil channels which are blocked.
He's getting rid soon hopefully, it's just bugging me why it happened and why it eventually showed too much when I put in below the recommended amount..there really wasn't any on the stick at first and it had been sitting overnight

 

[Dcal]

Don't worry about it dieseling, modern diesels have a throttle which will cut of the air to the engine and prevent it happening.
I would however worry about running the engine with basically no oil in it.
It won't be long before it starts to give bother.p

 

[123hotchef]

sounds like a blocked oil way or 2 id start with a decent flush let it work for stated time fill with cheap fresh oil do 500-1000 miles and drop that oil too swap filter and fill with decent oil

 

[rtbcomp]

If you put some oil in and it didn't find its way to the sump, wouldn't it have filled the rocker box?

 

[octo0072000]

Don't worry about it dieseling, modern diesels have a throttle which will cut of the air to the engine and prevent it happening.
I would however worry about running the engine with basically no oil in it.
It won't be long before it starts to give bother.p

that won't stop it once it's got going it will draw the air from the sump etc sounds like sump will be full of carbon from EGR valve and silly extended long oil changes that engine is running on a wing and a prayer

 

[Dcal]

It's harder than you think to get one going although it used to be a common occourance. It takes a lot of air to run an engine full throttle and you would need to have a hole in the sump or an open breather to get enough air into it.

How gummed up would it have to be to stop the oil getting back into the sump unless he filled it with treacle.
I can't understand why that engine hasn't itself already, it's only a matter of time and God help any poor sod that ends up buying it

 

[zx9]

It may not have been showing any on the dip stick but there would still have been some oil in the sump which may be why adding less than the published oil capacity showed it to be over filled.
The published capacity will be from a drained sump, they used to give capacities for an oil change and a slightly higher figure for a re built engine which has no residual oil in the sump this ignores that the oil pump pick up will not be from the very bottom of the sump.

 

[octo0072000]

seen pug 1.6 HDIs on long service blow the crank sump just one big block of carbon like treacle mileage was about 60 thou ish from memory

 

[Dcal]

seen pug 1.6 HDIs on long service blow the crank sump just one big block of carbon like treacle

Also seen that on daf vans.
Turns out the problem was overfueling and diesel running down the bores and into the sump, you would thing it would just diluite the oil but not always
Looked like a block of black cottage cheese but it still ran.

 

[123hotchef]

Also seen that on daf vans.
Turns out the problem was overfueling and diesel running down the bores and into the sump, you would thing it would just diluite the oil but not always
Looked like a block of black cottage cheese but it still ran.

seen that on some mitsis that fail dpf regens the sump fills with diesel too

 

[octo0072000]

the 1.6HDIs was all on a taxi fleet either crank big ends due to lack of oil or they put a rod out depending on speed when it went,
you cant run a taxi on 20.000 mile oil changes I don't care what any dealer says
mine own HDI had oil changes about every 6 weeks about 50.000 miles a year.
still going at 300.000 when sold had the usual clutch flywheel turbo power steering pump etc

 

[Bryan Williams]

It may not have been showing any on the dip stick but there would still have been some oil in the sump which may be why adding less than the published oil capacity showed it to be over filled.
The published capacity will be from a drained sump, they used to give capacities for an oil change and a slightly higher figure for a re built engine which has no residual oil in the sump this ignores that the oil pump pick up will not be from the very bottom of the sump.

Yes I can see that,it was a mere dab on the end of the dipstick, I cleaned it and redid it a couple of times too check but I guess there could have been 1/2 a litre or so in.
It still took ages to perculate down tho.

 

[Bryan Williams]

It's harder than you think to get one going although it used to be a common occourance. It takes a lot of air to run an engine full throttle and you would need to have a hole in the sump or an open breather to get enough air into it.
Frankly I was shocked that it had made the journey from Chester up to Builth Wells, I suppose when it packed up it got partially siezed,he said that the starter was spinning tho,j jus not starting.
Didn't blow up on the way back either.

How gummed up would it have to be to stop the oil getting back into the sump unless he filled it with treacle.
I can't understand why that engine hasn't **** itself already, it's only a matter of time and God help any poor sod that ends up buying it