Wanna know what happens if you overfill the oil............

At first I wasn't going to post my stupidity here but maybe it will help keep someone else from making the same mistake I did.......

after two glorious days of ferrari owership she is headed to the shop


I check the oil running, and it diding register, so I shut down waited about five minutes and checked again, registering but still below min line (this is an 85 308 BTW)

so I added a quart and rechecked.....just hitting the min line. added another half quart now we are at 1/3 between min and max, I just added the rest to be what I thought was the safe side.
an hour later I started the car to drive over to the courthouse to register it, and it blew the rear valve cover gasket immediatly on start up. I know because, after leaving the courthouse my wife calls and says, "did you spill any oil in th garage when you were adding oil" I said nope not a drop.

I pull in the drive and in the garage is a saucer sized puddle of oil.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!

I pull the car in and sure enough it's a almost constant drip under the car directly under the botton right corner on the rear valve cover (right under oil fill cap area)

So Immediatly call my ferrari tech and he says I probably blew the gasket from the pressure, (says it fairly common, and almost always in that spot) He said the run my hand around the edge of the valve cover and see if I feel anything sticking out, and sure enough right at the bottom right corner of the rear VC where it meets the cam cover there is a tab about half the size of a dime, sticking out and just flopping. also between the cam pulleys you can see where it has about halfway blown out but it still holding.
He said it's not the worst thing I could have done, but still I'm outta driving for a week or two, and a few hundred bucks.


We figure it has just over 10.5 quarts in it !!!

I call our local ferrari service shop, and we all agree it's going need the valve gasket replaced.

I guess this one get chalked up as STUPID TAX !!

You live and learn I guess.............
here are the pictures of both areas.
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Hey it happens to the best of us. Don't feel bad you had good intentions of making sure your oil was properly topped off. How are you enjoying the car otherwise is it everything you expected? (I'm betting it is and more!)

 

yeah other than the driver, the car prefroms BEAUTIFULLY,
I had intentions of keeping it a couple of years, then moving up to a 355, but after driving it to the coffee shop, parking on the street out front, then sitting in the window enjoying a nice coffee and admiring the lines of the car, I don't think I could ever sell her...........

 

This would be a typical mistake for me to make, I always like to be on the "safe" side, thanks for posting yours
How much oil does it take to get from the min. line to the max. line?

Helmut

 

John - something does not smell right. As the British said during the War, "...there's an Ethiopian in the fuel supply."

I am at a loss to understand how adding too much oil will blow a valve cover gasket from "...too much pressure." Oil splashes around the cam. There are no oil conduits through the interface of the cover to the head. Furthermore, oil pressure is determined by the oil pump and resistance to flow, not by how much is in the sump. The usual catastrophe from adding too much oil is for the breather valve to start spitting oil, or in carbureted cars oil will spill into the air filter and carburetors.

Something amiss here. I invite others to correct me.

Jim S.

 

That's what I thought at the 308 then 328 and then the 348 now the 355, there is no way..... OK I need the 430...BAD....

I'm tellin' ya it is a sickness..

 

And one more point to ponder. From MIN to MAX should require 2 Qts. So what you added should not have overfilled it. Also, the most accurate oil level check is done on a level surface, warm car, 15 minutes after shutting off.

Tom

 

Something just doesn't look right about that picture between the cams. I happen to have a cam cover gasket here, and it doesn't look like it is possible to blow out in the area shown; the gasket just looks way too thick. Also, it seems that if there was pressure within the cam cover, the thin side would blow out, not the bottom.

To me, it looks like the cover gasket wasn't installed properly to begin with. On your first picture, it appears that the gasket is between the cam bearing cover and the head rather than under the valve cover.

That foamy material in the first picture looks like maybe the prior owner just used some gasket maker to stop a leak caused by an improperly installed gasket, and it just happend to fail on you at this time.

Either that, or the foamy stuff is water mixed with oil, but I wouldn't want to even think about that possibilty.
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it wasn't the cam gasket it was the valve cover gasket. plus it had a major done by Ron Tonkin four months ago. I'm sure they know how to install a valve cover gasket. keep in mind that its a paper gasket that was soaked and sat for about three hours prior to the picture which is why it looks "foamy" and it's taken with a digital zoom camera blown up about 400%

but you all make good points. I had the service manger and a tech at Ron Tonkin tell me that will easily happen with that much oil, that's it's actually pretty common. That it's way too much pressure, plus a independant shop agreed.

the two quarts were added HOT. when taken COLD its almost an 3/4" to and 1" above the full line.

 

Well bud, sorry for your little problem. Just look at the bright side. I know you would rather pay the extra for a blown gasket than to pay for an engine that ran without oil. There is quite a price difference. =]

 

John,
Sorry to hear of your problem. BUT, as has been said before, something smells. If you have enough positive pressure under your valve cover to blow a gasket, I would say you have other issues. I have never heard of this "problem" as there is enough drain-back to accomodate a flood. I would request to be there when they pull this or ask them to at least give you the failed gasket if you can not be there. Also ask for a better explanation to the cause. I'm an old dog, but I can be taught.
Jim

 

I once started a 190E mercedes with the valve cover off. Oil just splashes up around the lifters, that's it. If I imagine trying to send enough oil up the engine to push out a gasket I would guess it would take a lot of pressure, certainly not what I witnessed when watching the lil oil jump up.

When I first read your post I also thought it sounds funny but I have read about disaster stories due to oil overfill on F cars before and thought I just don't know any better.

I guess I will be careful anyways.

Helmut

 

Sorry, but I gotta call BS on this.(Not on you, just the advice you received.) First off, there is no valve cover, so to speak. It's a cam cover on an overhead cam engine.(Like a 308) But the oil that leaks from a cam cover seal is under NO pressure at all!! The oil for the cams is pressurized where it feeds through the cam caps, but the rest of the oil is basically slung around. You could run the engine without the cam cover on without any loss of pressure. (But you'd make one helluva mess!) Either way, I wouldn't worry about a failed cam cover gasket. It seems to be fairly common. Just not due to overpressure.

Dave

 

I overfilled my 308 back in August. All the excess oil blew out the rear main seal nothing out of the cam cover. My situation was a little different.

I was driving from Phoenix to Monterery. About 3 hours into the drive I started losing oil pressure. I thought something was wrong so I stopped and checked the oil it read way low barely above min. I immediately put 1 quart in and started the car and drove another 1.5 hours. I started to get off the freeway for breakfast and the oil pressure dropped like a rock again. When I stopped to check it out I had a dinner plate size puddle under the car. I thought I must have had some major leak and that was why I was leaking so bad. So stupidly I put another 3 quarts in and headed to San Diego (it was the closest place I could leave the car). About 4 times the car dropped oil pressure, and when it did I put another quart of oil in it. I left it in San Diego and went on to Monterey in another car (all the time thinking I had some major problem and that I was losing about 2 quarts and hour of driving).
When I returned to San Diego I checked the oil and it was over-full. I drove it home and one time it dropped oil pressure again. I pulled over waited 15 min and checked the oil, still over-full. I drove all the way home and when I got it to my garage and up on jack stands I noticed all of the oil at the rear main. Thinking I had done major damage I took it to a mechanic to take a look, all that was happening was the excess oil was being blown out the rear main and the oil filter gasket and as soon as I drained 2 quarts out, I have yet to have another problem. My oil pressure sending unit has been changed (the probable culprit) as well as the oil pressure relief valve, a new oil filter and oil filter base gasket. It made a huge mess, but no problems since. I just make sure, like other here have stated, to check the oil on a level surface with a warm engine about 15 min after shut off.

 

This is wild suposition, but i once recal reading about an excessive overfill, where the oil level was so high that the crank was hitting the oil in the pan and throwing it all over and making it overload the oil control rings leading to both loss of power and excessive oil consumption - smoke??

How much is too much??

I would like to know because I plan to slightly over fill my 308 to help avoid oil starvation in turns. This is really a BIG problem with my pumped toyota 22R engine, which will really starve in moderate right hand turns. I have to run it between one and one and one half qts overfull to keep oil presure.

Haven't had the car on the track yet to see how bad the 308 right hand turn oil presure problem is but I have heard about for a while.

??
chris

 

I'll do some more checking and after we pull the cover, maybe will know more. Thanks for all the input !!!

 

You might call the service manager at Ferrari of Atlanta (Chris at 800-522-2345) and ask him if he also considers this a "common" occurance due to overpressure so you can see if you get a similar story to the one from the Oregon dealer's service manager.

 

308's have a blow by that bleeds excessive pressure.

I could see this if the blow by system was removed or not working correctly.

I say there was an installation error. My QV had an engine rebuild and it leaked into the distributators on fire up.

mistakes happen

I agree with all about calling BS.
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I would agree that further consultation is needed as this doesn't sound right....but more importantly; please read the freakin' manual before driving or doing anything else to the car!!

As far as "never selling her"...don't speak so soon. I said the same thing with my previous 308...then the 328....now I know better, and make no such silly statement with my current 355 spider....who knows what lurks in the future!

 

This is worth mentioning again, but you're confused here. There is NO valve cover gasket on your 308, only a cam cover gasket.

And you're vent sytem is screwed up if your oils system blowing out gaskets there because of pressure. As other's have mentioned, that gasket is under almost no pressure.

 

Valve cover = cam cover = same thing. Guys leave the guy alone, just terminalogy. An overhead cam engine still has valves, and thus a valve cover is still correct.

BTW: ALWAYS CHECK YOUR OIL BEFORE STARTING THE ENGINE. Engine should be cold.

Once run oil has been pumped all over the engine and thus you have no idea how much oil is in there. Same for Toyota, Mazda, Ford and Ferrari.

Pete

 

Wrong!

Again, read the owners manual cover to cover before you do anything else to the car.

 

I stand corrected ... but that 15 minute wait is critical then.

Pete

 

Hey, Erik.

I stated this in post # 8, yesterday. Nobody reads what I post .

I don't get any repect. Even from a fellow Mondial owner.

I'll never post again