Hello Everyone. My car (120 series D4D engine) and camper trailer have just arrrived back from Kununurra on a truck where we unfortunatley suffered a second engine failure half way through a year long around Australia trip. I am currently a little mystified as to the cause of the second failure and hoping that someone might be able to provide their thoughts on how to progress. The facts so far:
1. Engine was rebuilt (long engine) 80000kms ago after two pistons cracked. I bought the car second hand approximately 30000kms prior to this engine failure. Injectors were only 30000kms old and well within spec at time of failure. Engine is stock standard, no chips, aftermarket exhaust etc.
2. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. We had just left the Gibb River Rd (thankfully) and were travellng on the bitumen at 100km/hr. The oil light came on and I pulled over straight away and turned the car off (within 30 secs) but the damage had seemingly been done. There was no other warning noises or lights (if you ask my wife she thinks I am quite paranoid re noises etc as I like to pick up potential problems early). I restarted the engine to find it running very rough and making some very unpleasant noises. There was also some smoke (burning oil) coming out of the dipstick and oil fill opening but the oil level was good. We had the car towed as I knew it was bad and didn’t want to further damage the engine.
3. We had covered 20000kms on our trip so far and I had changed the oil every 5000-6000kms.
4. Mechanic confimred engine rebuild required by listening to it.
So today I checked the pickup screen in the sump and it is as clean as a whistle. Then I had a careful look in the sump and if you look at the second photo you may be able see something that shouldnt be there. Yep, that is a bolt. It doesn’t look like it has been clanging around the engine and I certainly didn’t hear anything. There was also some small metal shavings in the sump. Not good.
So, my thinking is that it must be an oil pressure issue, something wrong with the oil pump?
I would really appreciate your thoughts on this before I start doing compression tests or trying to access the oil pump.
Thanks.
Nick
1. Engine was rebuilt (long engine) 80000kms ago after two pistons cracked. I bought the car second hand approximately 30000kms prior to this engine failure. Injectors were only 30000kms old and well within spec at time of failure. Engine is stock standard, no chips, aftermarket exhaust etc.
2. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. We had just left the Gibb River Rd (thankfully) and were travellng on the bitumen at 100km/hr. The oil light came on and I pulled over straight away and turned the car off (within 30 secs) but the damage had seemingly been done. There was no other warning noises or lights (if you ask my wife she thinks I am quite paranoid re noises etc as I like to pick up potential problems early). I restarted the engine to find it running very rough and making some very unpleasant noises. There was also some smoke (burning oil) coming out of the dipstick and oil fill opening but the oil level was good. We had the car towed as I knew it was bad and didn’t want to further damage the engine.
3. We had covered 20000kms on our trip so far and I had changed the oil every 5000-6000kms.
4. Mechanic confimred engine rebuild required by listening to it.
So today I checked the pickup screen in the sump and it is as clean as a whistle. Then I had a careful look in the sump and if you look at the second photo you may be able see something that shouldnt be there. Yep, that is a bolt. It doesn’t look like it has been clanging around the engine and I certainly didn’t hear anything. There was also some small metal shavings in the sump. Not good.
So, my thinking is that it must be an oil pressure issue, something wrong with the oil pump?
I would really appreciate your thoughts on this before I start doing compression tests or trying to access the oil pump.
Thanks.
Nick
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