What a day! What to expect?

[smileyq]

Well I had a not so fun experience this last Thursday with my Disco. I'll give you guys the short version for time sake but here goes. I change my oil check for leaks and fnd no problems so I head off to work. About two miles down the road I catch a glimpse of my oil light blinking. I think I'm seeing things because when I look at the dash I don't see anything on. I see it again and this time I did happen to catch it and knew at that point something was wrong. About that time I start to hear my engine knocking (never a good thing) and then my oil light stays on and the knocking begins to get worse. I get off the road ASAP and turn her off quickly. As I get out and look back down the interstate I see a line of oil as long as I can see (pretty rainbow on the interstate) which makes me feel even worse. Of course I'm thinking my engine is locked up or close to it by the sounds I was hearing. I pop the hood and check my oil level. The oil level on the dip stick reads 0%!!!! As you can imagine I'm not very happy at this point so what happens. Well it starts raining like no other. Any way I get under the Disco on the side of the interstate and start looking at parts. I take off the oil filter (Wix brand from OReilly Auto Parts) and bamo found the problem. The freaking seal on the oil filter is no where to be seen. So basically I was pumping ever last drop of oil out of my engine every cycle through the oil filter. Well I replace all the parts, get a new oil filter, add all new oil for the second time that day and just cross my fingers that I didn't bend a rod or just screw my heads up. Well I crank it up and after about 5 seconds no knocking and she is purring like a kitten again. Sooo my question is this what can I expect to go wrong from this? Granted I did get off the road very quickly when I heard it knocking and cut it off but I'm telling you it sounded pretty bad. As of today its running fine like nothing happened and htis was 2 days ago. Did I just take 30k off the life of this engine more than likely? Needless to say I'm not to happy with the Wix oil filters anymore. Man this sucked.

[Disco Mike]

Tough break!
I would suggest you do a really good engine flush, get rid of all the old sludge and lacquer build up and maybe even a little metal.
Run a good 20/50W oil like CastrolX or better along with something like Lucas's oil supplement or spend the bigger bucks and try some of the European oil additives that are supposed to fill in all the wear and tear groves and scratches.
Flush it one more time with your next oil change and hopefully you will have no long term damage.
Mike

[Muddy Oval]

Ditto-

It may make the difference in the long term between 240,000 miles and 270,000 miles if you do as suggested, then go synthetic long term. Bite the bullet and get a Genuine or Coopers filter from now on. Before working in the biz, I used to order them 4 at a time with new drain plug washers- that way I always had some and the shipping costs from mail order was spread over 4 of 'em.

[smileyq]

Where can I get the Coopers filter. I just find it really hard to pay $10 per oil filter when they can be had for the same quality (well maybe) for half of that. I appreciate the response. Last thing when you say flush do you mean just an oil change with the flush additives or have LR do a flush with a system. I put Castrol 10w 40 oil in it now with the sludge protection etc.. Again as always thanks.

[Disco Mike]

Originally Posted by smileyq

Where can I get the Coopers filter. I just find it really hard to pay $10 per oil filter when they can be had for the same quality (well maybe) for half of that. I appreciate the response. Last thing when you say flush do you mean just an oil change with the flush additives or have LR do a flush with a system. I put Castrol 10w 40 oil in it now with the sludge protection etc.. Again as always thanks.

My thought was buy a can of engine flush, or 2 or 3 qts. of ATF, add the chemical flush and let the engine idle for 20 minutes or so, then cahnge the oil. With the ATF, you would have to darin off a couple of qts of old oil first, takes more effort but works really well.
Mike

[smileyq]

Thanks guys. I'll do it.

[Rovin4life]

No offense but its always recommended to clean the filter housing and put some oil on the filter seal.

for one you can tell if the seal is there and two check for a double gasket.

and yes I have been caught with a double gasket way back when I worked on fords.