Low oilpressure, Oil pickup Stalactite

I got to thinking about my previous post regarding cleaning those old straight six's out using Kerosene.
Well, these were older truck engines and they were pre- PCV. SO they had crankcase breathers that just came out of the side of the crankcase and blew overboard.
I wouldn't put anything combustible in an engine that has Positive Crankcase Ventilation as it ingests the crankcase fumes back into the intake and could go boom.
Kerosene is still a good cleaning agent though and I don't think it will hurt any seals if you use it as you are thinking, pumping through the engine with an external pump.
BTW, thanks for that article on building an external pump. I might have to make one of those to use as a pre-oiler for the motorcycle engines i build occasionally.

Pickup has less on it this time.

Cleaned the engine again from below, a lot more stuff flushed out.
The drain plug clogged when I was draining the oil, so I dropped the pan when it was still up to the level sender.


On a side note, the level sender on the 1996s is optical. The 1998 Grand Prix uses a float switch.


I pulled out more paper from the top of the windage tray and block this cleaning. Paper in picture is all from one cleaning, blue paper is whole sheet of shop towel for scale.


I put the stock pickup back on, the one from napa had a much courser screen. I then ran the engine for with the gunk flush and cheap Wal*mart store brand oil. Light didn't come on but it wasn't on very long either. I dropped the pan and cleaned again. No where near as much paper as before, most of it was stuck to windage tray. I put windage screen with nicks around drainage holes in. The Oil was clear enough to see blemishes in bottom of pan through 1/2 inch of oil. Refilled with farm&fleet brand oil ($1.50 a quart) ran it 15min. Puddle under car of oil, most likely from only putting 4 bolts in pan(tried to save time since I'm dropping it so much). Have to check in morning, there wasn't enough daylight to drop pan again after cleaning mess.

I checked the ingredients of the Gunk engine flush, its mostly no.2 diesel and paraffin oil with some solvents found in octane booster.

I think the best way to get the stuff out will be to run the 15-20 min( about the time it took to clog before cleaning), then add the motor flush. Directions say run it for 5min with flush in.

The remote adapter that attaches to engine is stuck on. I would have to put prybar between fitting to turn it( I would rather not for fear of bending aluminum.). The one on the strut tower came off okay. Passages were clear, and it had the sharper bends and smaller gaps of to two, so the other should be Clean too.

At this point I don't know how important solvents are, I think it's just the physical flow getting the paper out of the engine...
And if the oil is a normal color now, your idea of screening it and recycling it (every 1/2 hour) sounds legitimate to me.

I admit, unless the remote filter system is storing it, that's a helluva lot of paper to be hiding - maybe it's all under the rear rocker cover.


My brother gave me one of those electronic oil level sensors that he changed out of a customer's '95 or '96, just to show me the
difference ('97 has the magnetic float.) There's a whole circuit board in there, and I never did figure out how it worked - I was thinking
inductive or capacitive, but optical is as good an explanation as any.

Don't break it with all this work you're doing! My new sensor was only about $20, but he said that fancy one was obscene...
Can't interchange them either, the float uses a 2-wire circuit, and the glass one uses 3 wires.

Maybe as Robo mentioned on page 2 that the mechanic left some paper towel or shop towel in the valley while replacing your LIM gasket.
It's plausible considering how much stuff your having to remove.!!!!!!!

Rickw wrote:

Maybe as Robo mentioned on page 2 that the mechanic left some paper towel or shop towel in the valley while replacing your LIM gasket.
It's plausible considering how much stuff your having to remove.!!!!!!!

I saw some pics once where that happened. It was a Blazer or a Jimmy engine.

If you search around you should be able to find it, might help.

Bert

Will the rear cover valve cover come off with out messing with the alternator? I Know i have to take of the brace that goes to rear of it, but that has been loose since I've had the car. Has the wrong bolts, they bottom out before it tightens, could just leave it off. I removed the cruise control and bracket it was on, so only thing in way of cover is alternator and strut tower brace. It looks like I may be able to get it off with out taking of alternator, not sure though and I would prefer to not have to mess with the serpentine belt.

The level sender is smaller and the pan drops without messing with it. Only have to take wire connector on/off. Should be fairly safe.

If they left paper towels in the motor it was more then one. I pulled more then 1 towel's worth in a single cleaner. The filter on the remote mount holds almost a quart of oil, so if it failed there would be alot more paper to go through engine.

I'll pick up a clean container to strain oil into and start reusing it every 1/2 hour.

I must say this is a very interesting thread to read. I have one simple question though: Why didn't you go back to the mechanic that did the job and raise holy hell until he reimbursed you or paid for it to be fixed somewhere else?

Its a car part now wrote:

Will the rear cover valve cover come off with out messing with the alternator? It looks like I may be able to get it off with out taking of alternator, not sure though and I would prefer to not have to mess with the serpentine belt.

Actually, "messing" with the serpentine belts is their strong suit... CHANGING them sucks donkey-dong, but slipping one on & off a pulley just takes a wrench on the tensioner for a few moments.

wow man..this sux for you! i would be mad as hell.as gmfreak8 sed,going down to the mechanic who did your gaskets,tell em what you found and ask em how they are going to fix it? leaving the paper towels seems the only thing that could have happened.

I would say the mechanic messed up royally. It's lucky that you paid close enough attention to the car while driving it, it could have been much worse. I'd take the evidence back to the mechanic and ask him what he's going to do about it. There's no way a filter has that much paper in it, plus it would have to fail catastrophically to put the filter medium into the engine.

please cut open the old filter and show us the pics of it. might be interesting too.

I was going to cut open the filters when I had chance. I was going to try an exhaust pipe cutter on it. If that doesn't work, hacksaw.

If it was paper towels left in engine at least the paper didn't get to the pan through the bearings. The idea of paper fibers moving through a cam or crank bearing while its spinning scares me a bit. If it came down from above and was shredded by the rotating parts at least it stayed out of the small channels in the valve train and bearings, since it seemed to not make it through pickup screen.

Most recent oil drained looked as clean coming out as going in, judging by the falling stream. Went into pan with dirty oil in it. Didn't have time to drop pan again before work, doing that in morning. Since the oil is coming out clean I'm going to drain it into new clean pan and filter it through tea ball next. If it can stop bits of tea leaves getting in tea, it should catch the paper. It is a finer mesh then the stock pickup, and about twice as fine as the Napa pickup. Once its finally clean, I'll strain all the old oil to see how much paper came out of engine.

I'll try to get the back valve cover off tomorrow too. It sounds like it shouldn't be to hard. I have never had to do anything with serpentine belts, so I didn't know what was involved. A wrench on tensioner sounds easy enough. I think the remote filter is in way, but it will be of anyway for cleaning.

The mechanic has seen the first picture and a zip-lock bag of some of the paper. There reaction was that the filter failed and to go to store that sold the filter (Wal*mart). I ran into the shop manager of the Wal*mart lube express, I knew him because I used to work there, he said to get a hold of Fram. The Fram site says there not liable if the vehicle is modified, Ford filter on a Buick would probably count. It looks like unless It is provable they left paper in engine I'm out of luck. They charged me more for spark plugs and O-rings then I've spent cleaning motor anyway, and it would probably have sat a week before they popped the hood anyway. The waiting drove me nuts. I would rather fix it myself than pace waiting for someone else. It also seems I should have done the lim gasket myself anyway, would have been cheaper and done sooner.

I can't remember which is which, but go slow on the tensioner until you're sure which way it goes... IIRC, one goes clockwise & one goes CCW.

The FSM says it goes down with 15mm wrench. I'm assuming what they mean by down is obvious when looking at the tensioner

Dropped pan, partially full from paper clog in drain plug again. Pick up only has a little on it. Most of the paper seems to be snagging on nicks in openings of windage tray. I'm using windage tray from friends blown motor(he had piston ring come out top of piston & broke the rod, while driving at 30mph), lots of little nicks to snag the fibers.

Its a car part now wrote:

Most of the paper seems to be snagging on nicks in openings of windage tray... lots of little nicks to snag the fibers.

Hey, an auxiliary cellulose filter... That's not a bug, that's a feature!

Yea it it is helping. I was tempted to get a file an serrate the edges of the drain holes, but figured the nicks already there are doing a good enough job.

it sounds like you have a lot of interesting ideas for your riv. why dont you put some pics up?

Its a car part now wrote:

I was going to cut open the filters when I had chance. I was going to try an exhaust pipe cutter on it. If that doesn't work, hacksaw.

If it was paper towels left in engine at least the paper didn't get to the pan through the bearings. [some omitted]

I'll try to get the back valve cover off tomorrow too. It sounds like it shouldn't be to hard. I have never had to do anything with serpentine belts, so I didn't know what was involved. A wrench on tensioner sounds easy enough. I think the remote filter is in way, but it will be of anyway for cleaning.

The mechanic has seen the first picture and a zip-lock bag of some of the paper. There reaction was that the filter failed and to go to store that sold the filter (Wal*mart). I ran into the shop manager of the Wal*mart lube express, I knew him because I used to work there, he said to get a hold of Fram. The Fram site says there not liable if the vehicle is modified, Ford filter on a Buick would probably count. It looks like unless It is provable they left paper in engine I'm out of luck. They charged me more for spark plugs and O-rings then I've spent cleaning motor anyway, and it would probably have sat a week before they popped the hood anyway. The waiting drove me nuts. I would rather fix it myself than pace waiting for someone else. It also seems I should have done the lim gasket myself anyway, would have been cheaper and done sooner.

Some quick comments:

1) I don't understand "Ford Filter on a Buick." When you have a moment please explain.

2) A look at the filter - without cutting it open - should tell if any of the filter distintegrated. I doubt it. What I've seen and been told about is the glued-on end boards on the Fram filter come unglued after a while, usually somewhat after the 3000 mile recommended change interval. I have not heard of the filter media dissembling. So if you still have the old filter, look in the big hole in the middle. You should be able to see the filter media through there. Secondly - if you are going ot cut it open you really might want to have someone who does not care about the outcome witness it. You might even want to call Blackstone and see if they will do it.

3) After thinking about it I really doubt it's the filter, if only because I'm not aware of any filter media in use that will decompose in engine oil. But without the old filter, don't know/can't test.

4) On a personal note, I am *very* happy you have the skill, patience and chops to get the car running (right) again, and I hope you truly figure out what happened and tell us.

Albertj

I agree with Albert on the Filter Media disengrating.
Don't think that's what happened, but it is too late to prove the mechanic left some shop towels in the engine.
You would have needed to remove the intake manifold to prove it.
But as he said, you have had more patience and time that i would have put into it without bringing it back.
I probably would have had it towed back to the shop that did the LIM, on the Hook without the oil pan removed and said "WTF" is all this.

Yes, but as I mentioned a couple pages back, this engine didn't just have oil in it, it had a bunch of water, too...
Probably not a design parameter for either the filter media, or the glue that holds it in there.

Good point.

I said ford filter on a Buick because the normal application for the filter am using is 4.9 straight 6 Ford f150, and likely other engines/models. The one on now is even a Motorcraft, only non-fram I could buy at Walmart(besides supertech, they make Fram look high-end by comparison).

I saw the recommendation to have someone watch the filter cutting after i cut it open. The filter didn't fail though, unless the Mobil 1 the dealer changed was the culprit (I doubt it).


Close up of element


I also cut open on of the Fram TG-8 I used when flushing.


Pictures kind of fuzzy, but It looked clean to me, wouldn't change an air filter that was that clean. Red color is probably from Gunk flush.


The Tough guard has a screened bypass, about the same mesh as the pickup, No sign of fibers.


The pickup screen is getting cleaner each time.


After cleaning this stuff off again, I ran it over an hour with no light. I'm going to drop the pan in morning and strain the oil. It had about 1/4 the paper this time, at that rate it should be cleanish soon.

You sure are one patient dude.
But you have contributed an immense amount of information and knowledge here whether you know it or not.
It's not often anyone encounters what you have and have been able to document it, both verbally and in photo's, to share with the masses.
Thanks a lot.
Rick

Looking good... Sounds like you just might get out of this alive!

As I mentioned earlier, the idiotic-light is set at only 2 pounds, so you still need to beg, borrow or steal a temporary gauge
to see what your pressure actually is when the last of the paper is gone.

But, things are looking up, and hopefully this will end up as nothing more than a story to tell at the bar.