Should a pinhole leak in an oil line scare me?

Yup.

 

Yeah, don't drive it. It shouldn't take long to get a hose and install it anyways!

 

My doctor told me I had a little leak at the main artery from the heart to the lung. Nothing very big, except that I came from the Russian royal blood line and cannot stop the bleeding. I can't get in to see the specialist until next week. Should I worry?

 

Fine sprays are great for ignition - lots of surface area to vaporize more when droplets hit something hot. Like everyone else says, get it fixed.

 

You know how fuel injectors work? They spray a fine mist of gas or diesel so it will have lots of air around it and burn easier and faster. You wouldn't want to have a combustion chamber on the outside of your engine...

 

While I agree that an oil leak is not a good thing, I disagree with just about everyone here. The flash point for motor oil is tremendously high - so high that if you drop oil or spray oil on your exhaust components - they are not likely to catch fire. I have *never* heard of this happening with motor oil. I have had plenty of cars that had oil leaks that dripped right onto the exhaust (air cooled Porsches). I have never had a customer, nor heard of a single car that has caught on fire because of motor oil dripped or sprayed on the hot exhaust components.

The fire comment pings my "BS" meter.

On the other side of things, spraying oil around your engine compartment will make it very messy.

-Wayne

 

Interestingly, the DOT classifies most oils as "Non-Flammable":

Table 4.—Product Indicators

Indicator Considerations Product examples

H
(Highly volatile and flammable).
(Propane, butane, Natural Gas Liquid (NGL), ammonia).

Highly toxic
(Benzene, high Hydrogen Sulfide content crude oils).

M
Flammable&#151;flashpoint <100F.
(Gasoline, JP4, low flashpoint crude oils).

L
Non-flammable&#151;flashpoint 100+F
(Diesel, fuel oil, kerosene, JP5, most crude oils).

Motor oil has a flashpoint of over 200F I believe. I suppose that it is *possible* for oil to be ignited on a red-hot header, but if that were the case, most older Porsches would have gone up in smoke by now, as Wayne said.
The running joke amongst Porsche owners is that the constant oil leaks keep the heat exchangers from rusting out.

 

It's really a bad idea to drive the car. You have the possibility of creating a real disaster. Burning oil is hard to put out. That pinhole in your oil line could create a nice coating of oil in your engine compartment and say it does catch fire, all you need is a little fuel leak? Your car will be ruined.

 

At the risk of irritating the purists here, a pinhole leak is really nothing. You can take a piece of rubber radiator hose, cut it axially, use a couple of hose clamps, and probably make yourself a nice patch that won't leak while you wait for the line to come in and be installed. The car isn't going to explode, catch on fire, or seize up the engine. Heck - I'd bet some good duct tape might solve the problem by itself.

-Wayne

 

This is totally wrong in real life. Several years ago a couple of us were running our 944 turbos at Roebling Road. My friend was the careless type. He forgot to put his oil cap back on (right in front of the firewall over the turbo feed pipe). He was catching me as he was a slightly better driver back then. I picked up my speed and he disappeared. Oh, was I pleased until the next lap where his car sat on the side of the track with flames coming from underneath. The oil puked out and dribbled down the filler tube and onto the turbo feed pipe. It ignited. Fortunately, the course workers put the fire out. He got another cap and the problem never occurred again. He had his hood repainted.

You are wrong. Oil can ignite if it gets in contact with hot exhaust. Here was a prime example.

 

When one of my carbs needle valves was bad and it was running rich, the rear exhaust was glowing RED, I bet it would burn the oil dripped onto it like ... real fast.

The pin hole leak by itself is minor, with any other mishap with the car, then it could become a disaster.

Park it, fix it, and drive it again.

 

i watched a regular car burn to the ground from oil leaking out of the valve covers and down on the headers. i respectfully disagree with Wayne at Pelican. its a ferrari, not a camaro. i do like your idea of a repair patch, to keep enjoying the car. once oil is burning, it burns so hot that any and all rubber and plastic ignites, making it even harder to put out. oil leaks are a safety concern to me . i would leave it parked until its repaired.

 

A pinhole leak in your oil line is just like a pin hole leak in your condom. You can still go about your business but you may pay a bit more later down the road.

 

Better safe than sorry, I guess.

If oil does indeed catch on fire so easily, shouldn't all gt4's be burned to the ground by now?

 

We can just ask one of my former co-workers who watched the "wall of flame" fill the dyno cell about motor oil's flammability. Yes, it does depend a lot on how it's applied to the exhaust and how hot said exhaust is. We all spill oil and trans fluid on our exhausts on our lesser cars, don't we? But Marty'll tell you LOUD and LONG that he's seen oil burn!

 

Even if fire wasn't a possibility, can you be sure that the line won't blow leaving you with zero pedal pressure? I had that happen to me (in a Ford not in a Ferrari) twenty years ago. Luckily, I was only going about twenty-five, and the emergency brake was sufficient to stop my car before a wreck took place.

 

Art,can you give me details of these aircraft,I have been in the Aviation engineering business for 28 years and never heard of this happening,could you give me details.
Dave Mc

 

Wayne. I'd stick to selling parts rather than giving out advice like that if I were you. No-one has enough info here to give "oh it'll be all right" advice out....

Pin hole leak is not good, chances of pin hole turning into major fracture...who knows??

Engine oil will go up very quickly if the exhaust is hot enough. Most road driving will not generate enough heat, but it only takes a 5 minute blast to heat things up. A race car with an oil leak is a time bomb.

The problem seems to be waiting for parts......I'd just get a local hose shop to replace it and re-use the fitting's from the old one....should be able to do it while you wait........

 

Agreed,what if the "pinhole" turns into a "bolthole" in the middle of nowhere?do not risk this as it could be a very costly mistake.
Dave Mc

 

A friend of mind drove his 328 for about a year after knowing about an oil leak that kept him from passing tech inspection for a track event, but he didn't get it fixed at the time. Eventually he had to get it fixed right after I helped him put out the fire on the side of the interstate on the way to Atlanta! Luckily, we caught it before it did much damage, and we both had fire extinguishers in our cars.

 

The flash point and the fire point of most motor oils is between 400 and 500 degrees Fahrenheit. (The flash point is the temperature at which application of a flame will cause lubricant vapors to ignite, and the fire pointis the temperature at which the lubricant will sustain burning for five seconds.)

Most parts of the engine don't get that hot, so Wayne is pretty safe in saying that it shouldn't be anything to worry about.

Headers, exhaust, and other sources of high heat can, however, easily exceed the flash and fire points of motor oil. That explains why Lawrence's friend's Porsche caught fire when oil hit the turbo.

(By the way, anyone who puts a car on a racetrack with an oil cap missing is a danger to himself and anyone else on the track. That degree of carelessness has no place in motorsports.)

--Matt

 

Before this thread turns into a bunch of flames [pun intended], I think that we can all agree that the oil leak *could* cause a fire, but it's not likely if just driving on the street, and that the more serious threat would be for the leak to grow suddenly to the point of losing oil pressure. Definitely get it fixed.

 

I stick by my original statements. Just about 100% of the 308s out there and just about 110% of the Porsches out there ( ) have oil leaks. According to the people talking about it on this thread, all of these cars would have exploded into a fiery ball by now, particularly all of the Porsches that drop hot oil onto exhaust headers (happens *all* the time).

Patch the line with some rubber, clamps, or some duct tape, and don't sweat it. Replace the line with a new one when it comes. Keep a close eye on it though, as pin hole leaks signal bigger problems underneath...

On a side note, I am exposed to three groups of owners on a regular basis - Porsche, Ferrari and BMW. The differences in responses between the three groups are so surprising sometimes. Ferrari owners will sideline their car and not drive it for weeks if there is a drip-leak somewhere. Porsche owners will debate it until the cows come home, patch it, and then buy a new line after the patch fails. BMW owners will leave an oil slick on the road behind them and think it's cool. These are, of course, sweeping generalizations, but if you jump across the three groups, it's interesting to watch the mentality change. I've been surprised at how cheap some of the BMW owners can indeed be (not wanting to buy the proper tools for the job, even though they will be saving thousands of dollars doing it themselves). On the other hand, I've been surprised at how overly-cautious some of the Ferrari owners can be (Nitrogen in the tires, changing belts every 3 years, etc.). Porsche owners tend to be in-between, some being cheap, and some being overly caustious.

It's interesting to observe. The same advice given to the three different groups would in general, elicit three very different responses...

-Wayne