My nephew drives my truck. When he brought it over, I checked the oil and I thought it looked about a half quart too low. I added about a half quart and checked the oil again. I guess my eyes too bad or my estimate of how much is a half quart is off. It now looks a half a quart over. I am told that too much oil is bad too. I just can't find out how much is too much.
If I had a scrap piece of hose I might try the thumb over the straw and try to get a little out.
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**You usually have a low mark and a high mark. Anywhere between the two is OK. Below the low or above the high are not OK. Some engines have very specific methods for checking the oil
Hi, How old is the truck? It depends how much low or high, little bit won't be much of a concern but too much overfill is not good as well as too low oil level. Usually we don't keep topping up the oil unless it is close to low mark on the dip stick. I never had any car or truck burning or leaking oil. Never had to top it up between scheduled oil changes.
It is a 91 Ford King Cab. The original engine made it 125k. The rebuilt has lasted 100k
The stick does have a high mark and a low mark. It was my understanding that the difference between those marks = 1 quart. I have about enough oil in the engine to be half that distance again. I was pouring from a 5 quart bottle.
Hmm, OP is worrying about ver fill and wait long enoughj then oil level will rise usually. I,proper oil level can cause oil aerating or splash. I don't think modern engines have dual seal rings either. If worried I'll pull a plug and take a look at it. If it looks sooty, you know what it is. Or just do a fresh Oil, finter change at the joint.
You might want to verify all this: I think a problem with too much oil is frothing, because if the oil is high enough, the cranks shaft hits it, but oils for hte last 20 years or more have anti-frothing agents.
Also, I don't think a half quart is too much extra most of the time, and you don't have a small engine.
If you really wanted to remove some, they used to sell oil change kits that took the oil out through the filler tube, iirc. Maybe they still do. If not, you can buy various thickness of tubing at ACe hardware by the foot, or at HD by the roll. Even going very slow, one pint (two cups' worth) won't take very long. If holding your thumb doesn't work, you can fill the hose with oil. Let it drain into a one quart oil bottle, and there's no reason you can't use it when you need oil the next time.
I've never heard that before. He drives a 91. My 95 Chrysler shop manual is right here and for both the 2.2/2.5 and 3.0L engines it shows two piston rings and an oil ring, just like in 1950.
Why is any of this more likely than it was 12 hours ago. He was low then, and now he's high. Not because of a pint of new water in 10 minutes but because he put too much oil in.
An extra half quart of oil isn't going to cause problems. If it did, lots of people would be having trouble and you'd hear about it, because it has to happen lots of times. Either doing it yourself or having someone at a service station check it an slightly overfill it because the oil hadn't drained down enough when dipped, etc.
If you put an extra half quart in a lawn mower, that would be a different story.
Metspitzer wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Leave it alone. Half-a-quart too much is fine.
When the engine is running, a lot of that oil is in circulation around the engine anyway, plus you have something called a "windage tray" that helps prevent the crankshaft from whipping around in the oil that's in the pan.
The primary determinant of the levels on the stick is the need to keep the oil-pickup screen from momentarily running dry during cornering, on hills and the like. IOW, the levels are more minimums than maximums.
Next time you check the oil, remember that the rule-of-thumb is that if the level is between the marks, LEAVE IT ALONE. Most people check their oil soon after shutdown (like at a gas station), not realizing that a significant amount of oil is still hung-up in the engine and has not yet run back down into the oil pan, so they're gettng a falsely-low reading of the oil level.
If you want to make sure you're truly topped-up all the time, check the oil first-thing in the morning, after the car has sat overnight. That way anything that's going to run back down into the pan has done so; you'll have a true reading of how much oil is in there, and can add accordingly.
The problem of course is that they don't define how much you have to overfill it for that to happen. If you think damage can happen with a mere half a quart, don't you think there would be lots of engine failures all over the place? Or do you think that all the oil change guys, service station attendents, DIY's etc never put a mere 1/2 quart extra into a truck?
**Unless the engine manufacturer has a specific instruction for checking the oil. My engine requires the oil to be up to operating temp, then sit for a few minutes, then checked. They also sell a cold check dip stick, which gives the proper reading on a cold engine. Despite the fact that this six cylinder holds over 13 quarts, the instructions are adamant about not overfilling The OP also doesn't know how much extra oil is in the engine, he's only guessing at half quart
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"RBM" wrote in news:4dbd7beb$0$5276$ snipped-for-privacy@cv.net:
Good point. Some of those instructions are meant to guard against accidental overfilling by people who check their oil right after shutdown, but I suppose there are automakers who have engine designs that demand the consideration of different criteria.
This must be a Mercedes or BMW or something else on the exotic side of things. I was thinking of a run-of-the-mill Japanese or American 4-banger or V6, with an oil capacity of closer to 4 or 5 quarts.
That's true. But most dipsticks I've personally encountered were graduated to show one quart, or one liter, between the marks. Again, I'm sure there are exceptions.
Tegger wrote in news:Xns9ED88465A3A6Ftegger@208.90.168.18:
Let me clarify that last comment. I meant to say, "I was thinking of a run- of-the-mill Japanese or American engine, with an oil capacity of less than half of 13-quarts".
I doubt that back in 91' whatever he's got is as critical as mine. I'm not at all sure that mine is as critical as MB makes it out to be. It sure scares the snot out of you when every other line says something like "will damage the engine". There is a sticker on the oil fill that says that the use of other than specified oil will damage the engine. In the U.S. there is a choice of one oil I can use: Mobil 1ESP formula M. Try finding that on the shelf of your local Walmart
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