Catastrophic oil loss

[nowake]

::Edit:: My loss of oil pressure was due to it shooting out of the block somewhere, will update once I get the time to tear the engine down.

I seriously cannot believe I drove with the oil light on.. Engine is seized up pretty tight and was gushing oil from the front main seal.

I have been driving my 412 daily for the past few weeks. 20 miles here, 50 there, and a few dozen last night no problems. I've put in about 300 miles since my last round of service, which included some new pushrod tube oil seals, valve adjustment, valve cover gaskets, a clean strainer, new Purolator PureONE oil filter and a few quarts of 10w-30 Valvoline Maxlife.

I first noticed the light on while I was at a stop light in town, only two or three miles from where I live. I immediately pulled over, and shut the engine down and pulled the dipstick. Came back full and clean. Started it back up, oil light still on.. I thought "well it's probably a bad connection with the pressure sensor, it rained all last night" and decided to drive the few miles back home.

WRONG CHOICE

It only took another mile or so for the engine to start cooking.. eventually the transmission kicked down from the load it was fighting and the engine refused to accelerate. Pulled into an empty parking lot, engine now dead on it's own accord. The starter is helpless against the seized engine. Oil dripping from the front main seal. Engine block ticking loudly as it cools. Dipstick reading both clean and full. Time of death: 95,450.

So, one of two things happened: The oil pump gave out or a passageway got blocked. I'd love for this to be the filter's fault, maybe Purolator will buy me a new engine. I'd cleaned the strainer when I changed the oil, and spent a lot of time meticulously cleaning the old silicone sealant out of the pushrod holes in the block and heads when putting in the new seals. Since then, I've driven hours in the city and hours at 70mph so I'm pretty sure I didn't bork anything up with the maintenance. I hadn't been leaking much oil at all, maybe a drop or two overnight.

How common is it for our oil pumps to just give out like this?

[raygreenwood]

Its not common at all! Sorry for your loss.

If it was oil pump failure...and it sounds like it.....the most probable cause is the drive tang disengaging from the cam. Either it was not super well engaged and it wore or chipped or it is more possible that other things were at play.....like losing the thrust flange from the cam bearing (the stock engine has a single half flange for thrust)....and having the cam back away from teh tang enough to cause a worn tang to slip out.

Also a possibility...but rare i would think....is the inner o-ring totally failing and pushing out, venting most of the oil pressure to the case instead of the mains.

One curious thing...and not saying there is anything wrong with it...just curious....is your choice of high mileage type oil. I bought a quart of this once....one of the high milage oils....cant remmeber which. It smells heavily.
Reading on the label it noted that it helps "condition" seals on high milage engines....which to me denoted that it has solvents to "sooften"seals. I dont use these oils because I have no real idea what the effect might be on things I cant replace. Just some thoughts.

It could have been something caught in the strainer but you sound meticulous enough to prevent that.

In a really rare case it may have been failure of the pickup tube seal.....or ....possibely the weld tang for the pick up tube cracking off and allowing the tube to rattle out causing oil starvation to the pump.
Ray

[reluctantartist]

Did the oil light go out when your rpms went up?
_________________
1982 Westy, 1974 412 Variant... Yes, Aircooled's are great! Oh and I do have modern computer controlled vehicles too, but I just don't care about them.

[nowake]

Thanks for your condolences, Ray. I knew I could count on you for a detailed analysis of what might have gone wrong.

I had the tow truck drop the 412 at my parent's house because I don't have a garage at my apartment, and on my way back home I noticed an oil trail in the other lane that grew thicker and thicker the closer I got to my complex. The trail ended 4 feet from where I was parked, it seems a seal let loose 3 seconds after I put the car in drive. Probably the front main seal.

The oil pump for all purposes could be completely fine, something must have been helping to squirt oil out of my engine. I've used valvoline high-mileage in the car for something like 8k-10k miles, basically since I've owned it in 2009. It could very well have something to do with a seal failure, but I'll make my diagnosis once I get the engine out and tear it down.

What I said about the dipstick reading full? In my haste, I did not wipe the end of the stick off before taking my reading. Had my dog in the car, was parked on the shoulder of a busy road, didn't even notice the trail behind me. Nobody behind me told me, either.

The light did not go out when I revved the engine. My dash lights are so dim, you can't really see them during the day unless you cup your hand over them. I honestly thought I had a bad sensor; I've found water pooling up on the frame rails in the engine compartment after a hard rain and thought a connection might have gotten wet from the rain the night before.

I'd been planning on doing some engine-out maintenance once I got up to 99k miles, replacing the valves and such - this may have just forced my hand. My 412 will live again, this is for sure.

[raygreenwood]

Hey it happes even under the best care. From the sound of it...catastrophic oil loss.....I am betting it was an oil galley plug and not a main seal. It sounds just too fast. If it was a high miles all stock engine I'm betting one of the main galley plugs. Keep us informed. Ray

[reluctantartist]

Is there a way to do preventative maintenance on freeze plugs? The thought of something like that happening is disconcerting.
_________________
1982 Westy, 1974 412 Variant... Yes, Aircooled's are great! Oh and I do have modern computer controlled vehicles too, but I just don't care about them.

[raygreenwood]

Yes....you replace them with tapped plugs. Most ot them you can do...carefully...even on an assembled engine.

From lab supply houses you can get small bore rubber pipe "pigs" with eyes or hooks in the end. You can also make these. On the larger galleys that have a couple of inches of space behind the plug....you pull the old plug out...push in one of the rubber pigs deep enough to allow you to drill and tap. Then reach in with an o-ring hook and pull out the pig....pulling any metal shavings with it.

In a pinch you can notch the plugs with a dremel then stake the plugs to drive some surrounding material into the notches. It won't keep them from leaking but can prevent catastrophic blowout. Ray

[reluctantartist]

I still have my engine out and the tranny off so I will most likely do the notch method, with taking care of twins and the time is a premium situation plus the wife getting impatient with a non running car I will do what I need to keep from catastrophic failure. I did have a plug leak on the westy but my mechanic took care of that. Do newer cars have the same problem?
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1982 Westy, 1974 412 Variant... Yes, Aircooled's are great! Oh and I do have modern computer controlled vehicles too, but I just don't care about them.

[Lars S]

All Type 4 aircooled engines have these plugs in two sizes but the number of them varies. From what I have read the smaller ones are known to be rather "safe", many people does not treat them.
I followed the method in this post on my last Engine (you need to log in at 914club to see Pictures)
http://www.914club.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=150643&st=0


/Lars S
_________________
Porsche 914 -72, Bahia Red daily driver
VW411 2-d -70, White, in archive
VW412 4-d, -73, Gold Metallic, daily driver
Suzuki T500, -69, Candy Gold, in archive
Suzuki K50, -77, Black, daily driver
BMW R69S -69, White, in archive
Husqvarna 118cc, -47, Black, in archive

[Wildthings]

You are going to have to pull the engine down so you might as well drill and tap all your galley plugs. There are 11 plugs in 3 different sizes. If you have an engine block that was original set up for carbs then you only want to deal with 10 of the plugs and leave the one blocked by the fuel pump push rod guide alone.

The oil galley plugs typically blow on a cold engine with thick oil, but they can blow at any time. This design was poor engineering on the part of VW IMO.

It helps if you do not use the term front main seal. It is a misnomer to call the seal on the flywheel end of the engine that name even though many VW people do. Best to call it the flywheel seal and avoid confusion.

[Lars S]

You may be surprised over how little force you will need to pull some of the plugs...and in that moment you will feel happy that you took the step to replace them.

There is a lot written about this on the net, this is one example:

http://www.ephotomotion.com/914engine/page10.html



/Lars S
_________________
Porsche 914 -72, Bahia Red daily driver
VW411 2-d -70, White, in archive
VW412 4-d, -73, Gold Metallic, daily driver
Suzuki T500, -69, Candy Gold, in archive
Suzuki K50, -77, Black, daily driver
BMW R69S -69, White, in archive
Husqvarna 118cc, -47, Black, in archive

[Wildthings]

[raygreenwood]

That's exactly what I was refering to about slotting and peening. In the rare instance that I wouldn't just tap and plug....I take a dremel tool with ab "ball" shaped burr and put a fe crennellations around the edges of the plug from the inside of the plug toward the edge. The whole point being to lower the outer surface in a few spots to be able to peen the case edges over a slight amount more. Ray