has she blown?

[klukewakes]

hi there can anyone advise?driving to work yesterday in my tuscan and while overtaking a slow lorry the oil light came on briefly,i dipped the cluch straight away and noiticed that the engine was tapping rather alot louder than the norm.i drove slowly to the nearest garage[about 1 minute luckily]and asked them 2 have a look,ater checkin oil level and putting in 7 litres[where did it all go]started her up and still tapping but also when revving up slightly car shaking violently.i can'nt understand how it could loose all that oil as cheched it recently and not done that many miles,there are no signs of a leak so bit of a head scratcher that one.does this sound like a blown engine?any responce would be very much appreciated!

[justinbaker]

Hell another one!!!

Sorry my friend, it sounds like it has!!!

Is it tapping or "knlonking"? IE: Wooden hammer on the side of the engine, or a spanner being tapped lighhtly on the cam cover type of sound?

There are a few options for rebuild, I spoke with all of the known ones in Sprint, and advised in here. Austec came and collected the car propmtly. They have modified vlaves (sodium filled), and the other known modifications that you should speak to him about.

Paul Austin
Austec Racing
Unit 5, Forgewood Industrial Estate,
Gatwick Road
Crawley
West Sussex
RH10 9PG
01293 531080
www.austec.co.uk/
[e-mail]

If you want to cry, shount, rant, or stand with you mobile next to your Six, then give me a call if you like! email me or follow the link, in the profile!

The shaking sounds bad, yet alone the oil loss. Did the garage take the engine cover off?

How many miles have you managed, and whats its year?



>> Edited by justinbaker on Saturday 5th November 12:11

[unrepentant]

They needed to put 7 litres of oil in (capacity 9) and there's no oil leak?

You have been chcecking your oil?

[justinp1]

unrepentant said:

They needed to put 7 litres of oil in (capacity 9) and there's no oil leak? You have been chcecking your oil?

I agree, I find it difficult to understand how it could have needed 7 litres. If there really was only two litres in the engine, the oil light would have come on way before now, and secondly there surely would have been some sign when you were checking the oil level?

Only other explanation is that although oil may have been low, it didnt need an extra 7 litres?

[GreenV8S]

Either it was miles down on oil (shame on you, and that could easily have knackered the engine) or they didn't use the correct procedure to measure the oil level and have massively overfilled it - which could lead to its own problems. Are they familiar with that engine and did they follow the instructions to measure the oil level?

[trackcar]

unfortunately (or fortunately in some cases) it's perfectly possible to run these dry sump engines incredibly low on oil .. as long as there's enough in the bottom to (just) supply a constant oil feed to the pump then it'll show pressure.

the oil capacity in the alloy oil tank is about half what the total capacity is, which is closer to 11/12 litres if you include all the oil lines and what's left in the engine.

There *is* a proceedure for checking the oil, but it just means checking it as soon as you turn the engine off before the oil in the alloy tank has time to drain back into the engine .. this normally takes something like an overnight time frame or maybe longer, so if they checked it even a couple of hours after you pulled into the garage it should still have shown oil on the dipstick if there was any in there in the first place.

it does really sound ilke they had to put 7 litres in to me ... and your engine is probably goosed but this may be a symptom of something else rather than the cause eg ... One reason could be that the scavenge pump has failed (quite common), so all the oil is in the block and not getting pumped back into the alloy reservoir tank. (these engines have two oil pumps)

TVR Power are the daddies on these engines so I'd go there for advice and repair personally.

[klukewakes]

thanks for all the replies.mabe they have over filled but i was responsible for half of it as its my mates garage so had a look myself,they looked 4hs later and topped up again,if its over filled it wont be getting driven anyway so not worried about that,last time i checked the oil was 2 weeks ago and was left over night before and filled to max,i've done maybe 200-250 miles max since and not fast miles at that,it never used that much oil before and was due it's 6,000mls service so could'nt of been that low surely,anyway will check the level on monday where its either overflowing or vanished again?

[klukewakes]

i think this topping up lark seems to be a bit confusing,so basically u have to check the oil as soon as u switch off the engine,i was never told this and says nothing in the manual,im not an expert on engines but surely over filling is the best option? either way its gonna cost a small fortune to fix so i guess i best just join the back of the que

[TSS]

I’m very sorry to say that sounds quite similar to when my Tuscan engine went bang for the first time.

I was driving quite fast on some dual carriageway and it started loosing power and making the tapping (in my case banging) noise you describe. I pulled off an exit and within a mile the engine died completely so had to be pushed into a nearby petrol station. I checked the oil and it appeared to have none in it. This was strange as I’d recently checked it.

I was later told by the dealer that the engine was in a very bad state and they’d found more than 4 litres of oil had been jettisoned (somehow) into the exhaust system!

[GreenV8S]

TSS said:

I was later told by the dealer that the engine was in a very bad state and they’d found more than 4 litres of oil had been jettisoned (somehow) into the exhaust system!

That sounds rather alarming, it would take something pretty catastrophic to cause that.

[TSS]

GreenV8S said:

TSS said: I was later told by the dealer that the engine was in a very bad state and they’d found more than 4 litres of oil had been jettisoned (somehow) into the exhaust system! That sounds rather alarming, it would take something pretty catastrophic to cause that.

Yes, well I never did find out exactly what had happened to the engine despite making a few enquiries. Although one of the dealer’s mechanics did let slip that it needed a new block!

>> Edited by TSS on Monday 7th November 09:48

[adrianr]

GreenV8S said:

That sounds rather alarming, it would take something pretty catastrophic to cause that.

Wild, uninformed, unhelpful speculation follows:

Valve/cam follower problem, valve drops, holes piston, no compression on 1 cylinder so runs out of balance, all oil in sump blown up through hole in piston and out of exhaust??

AdrianR

[TSS]

adrianr said:

GreenV8S said: That sounds rather alarming, it would take something pretty catastrophic to cause that. Wild, uninformed, unhelpful speculation follows: Valve/cam follower problem, valve drops, holes piston, no compression on 1 cylinder so runs out of balance, all oil in sump blown up through hole in piston and out of exhaust?? AdrianR

That's pretty much what I decided had happened after speaking to a few people at the time who know more about engines that I do. Although [pedantic mode on] the engine is dry sumped so the oil would have been pumped in rather that sucked up from the sump (I think?!) [pedantic mode off].

[justinbaker]

Kev, check your email, its seems to be broke!