Missing Oil. anyone help

Tell your mate to watch his oil light/gauge in future. You can ussually avoid engine damage by stopping the engine as soon as you lose pressure.

When my Alfa Romeo 156 seized with a dry sump the oil light was off, and had never flickered. For that reason I have always much preferred proper gauges - the modern trend to digital displays that show 'exception information' only are hopeless, as it is impossible to spot a trend or see anything out the ordinary until a computer decides you ought to know. And if the computer gets it wrong....

I ran my Nissan turbo engine to very low but the oil pressure gauge gave the game away and I refilled it in time with no lasting damage before oil pressure became nil. Again no light came on, just spotted the gauge.

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

On or around Mon, 1 Sep 2003 02:35:33 +0000 (UTC), "SimonJ" enlightened us thusly:

Oil lights on most vehicles are a complete waste of space. Most of 'em come on at about 10lb or less. The only time it'll give you an early warning is if the level gets low and you go up or down a steep hill, which stops the oil getting into the oil pump. This can cause the oil light to come on briefly and go off again when you get back onto the flat.

at high speed and on a flat road, by the time the light's on, it's mostly too late.

gauge is a bit better, provided you get in the habit of watching it.

Guess who has vehicles that leak al the bleddy oil out.

Mind, to go back to the OP query - I once rebuilt a small crappy motorcycle, no oil leaks in evidence and no huge amounts of smoke in the exhaust - after a week or three it seized, on account of having burnt all the oil... But on an engine that you know doesn't normally use oil, you'd have to suspect summat.

Best bet is, of course, to check the oil regularly. I find it hard to believe that someone trying to sabotage it would go to the lengths of bringing a large oil draining pan, and refitting the sump plug, though, and in my experience, it's next-to-impossible to drain the oil from anything without getting *some* on the ground, so you'd be looking at bringing some big sheets of cardboard or something to put underneath. Unless, if course, the vehicle was moved, oil drained into a ditch, and then put back empty.

has he got any enemies who'd go to all that trouble?

What should the pressure be? Got a gauge on ours and it's one of the things I have been meaning to ask.

My Mum drove her Renault with the oil light on and wondered why it stopped!

Oil lights are only there to tell you have a problem, they are *not* low level indicators. Generally speaking, if the oil light comes on and stays on it is telling you your engine has already suffered damage and you need to do something about it. Some cars, and a lot of trucks, have low

*level* indicators, but otherwise the dip stick is the only way to check levels. Sorry to rant but......

Richard

Which means that "oil lights on most vehicles are a complete waste of space.". Space that could be more profitably used for an oil pressure gauge (although at higher manufacturing cost).

Mandy's Merc has a speedo, a rev counter and a fuel gauge. No temperature indication, no oil pressure etc etc. The fuel gauge moves from right to left, which is bizarre and confusing.

With car service intervals now going beyond 20,000 miles it is increasingly important that people can see the oil situation. How many people really check it weekly or monthly on a modern car? Mandy wouldn't even know how to check the level of the ashtray. So if we have to rely on the red light it really ought to work. Which they rarely do in my experience.

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

How can I check oil pressure without a guage if the lights only tell me when it's too late? A while back a flickering oil light on an Astra made me suspect a faulty oil pump, so with the engine running I took the filler cap off!! That caused the kids some merryment seeing me sprayed with oil.....guess the pump was ok! Point is on my RR there hardly seems to be any oil circulating inside the rocker cover, certainly nowhere near as much as that bloody astra had!

Dave

I used to know when the oil level was getting low on my Nova by the fact that the pressure gauge dropped whenever I went round a right hand corner. It was a handy indication that I should top it up, before the lamp started coming on.

Alex

Astra has an overhead cam engine, and needs a lot of lubrication at the top of the engine, particularly if it has hydraulic tappets. Rocker gear needs less oil, as the camshaft is much lower down the engine. With your RR it's in the valley, and there's lots of oil down there, the top of the engine only needs a small amount of lubrication to stop the rockers wearing out.

Alex

in article BB78D3D4.13D8F% snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com, Nikki at snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com wrote on 1/9/03 10:45 am:

A mate of mine failed to check the oil in his CJ5 jeep and it cost him over £1500 to put right plus we took the mick out of him for weeks, nay months and regulaly remind him of his stupidity.

On or around Mon, 01 Sep 2003 11:55:59 +0100, postmaster enlightened us thusly:

perfectly acceptable rant. I used to have a citroen which had a level gauge, but it only operated with the engine stationary.

On or around Mon, 01 Sep 2003 12:02:02 +0100, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

some of the more modern ones have a 2-stage light, which actually does have a worthwhile warning aspect. presumably the really modern stuff will put a "check engine" light on or similar, or go in to limited power mode, or cut out altogether.

after all, Honda manage to make generators which cut out if they lose oil pressure...

On or around Mon, 01 Sep 2003 10:43:36 +0100, Nikki enlightened us thusly:

V8s: 30-40 psi at 2400 revs

2¼: 45-65 psi at 2000 revs

but don't be alarmed if you have a V8 which shows under 10 psi at hot idle, or even idles with the oil light on. Provided the pressure goes up as soon as you go above idle, or the light goes out, it's probably OK. Different rules apply to V8s...

the 2¼ I used to have showed 20+ at hot idle, and about 65 at revs.

On my old Citroen BX, the oil pressure light would illuminate on left-hand bends (eg, roundabouts) if the oil level was low. Dead handy.

On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 18:32:19 +0100, Austin Shackles spilled forth with the follow words of wisdom:

While on that subject, Honda 4stroke outboard motors don't have any gauges, just if they over heat they go in to limp mode, and if lose oil pressure, the alarm, then cut-out...handy that.

I would have thought all modern cars with there millions of ECU's would cut out or do sommint before the engine goes bang.

I put a gauge in my series 3, glad I did, tells me oil pressure is

20PSI, not good, (mains warn, front & rear crank oil seal, not a seal anymore) but as I have a new engine to fit, not too worried

-- Dan

Pressure light in the 101 comes on at red traffic lights, and even a few revs don't shift it. Once on a bit of load it goes out though. A gauge is on the list of jobs, along with two dozen other things.

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

On or around Tue, 02 Sep 2003 09:13:37 +0100, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

according to the book, Early RR V8s have a switch which operates between 5.8 and 10.2 psi, later ones ('87-on) operate between 3.0-5.0 psi

Yours would be apt to be pre-87, so light on at idle isn't the end of the world...

I think it's bizarre that he's complaining about a light the _works_... :-)