Repeat something enough times, EVERYTHING will happen once

[Jack Olsen]

Ordinary day today. Nut and bolt check for an upcoming track day. And an oil change.

You know how some (all?) oil quarts come with a foil seal?



You push in with your thumb, and pour the oil. I've never worried about it.

Until today, when I put in the first of 10 quarts (993 motor in a 1972 chassis), and something just felt funny. I pulled the empty quart jug out of the trash, felt around the neck -- no tab of foil there -- looked into it with a flashlight, cut it open...

...I'm feeling a little crazy at this point, but I'm worrying that the piece of foil is down there in my oil tank. So I put a flashlight to the tank, squint my eyes looking all around, at least as much as I can see.

Nothing. Just a clean screen.

But it's bugging me. And I happen to own one of those borescope cameras, which I dig out and go snaking down, into and around in my oil tank. Sure enough:



There's a screen, fortunately -- but there are a few passages through the screen where this thing could easily pass. And while I know there is another screen at the oil pump, I'm not happy about the thing making its way into the case.

20 minutes later, with a fair amount of cursing, twisting/shaping the gooseneck of the camera a few dozen times, losing sight of it, bumping it closer to one of the big holes, fitting a grabber down alongside the camera, bending the neck of the grabber a few dozen times to try to get it to the right place. More cursing.

Finally:



It makes me wonder where it would have ended up? Maybe nowhere important. Maybe I've got a half dozen pieces of the stuff down inside the tank. Who knows. But this one won't be swimming there, at least.

I was careful to pull back and tear off the foil pieces on the rest of the oil. But over the course of pouring hundreds of them into my oil tank, this is the first time I ever thought about the possibility that one would tear off -- that oil would be packaged with a potentially-oil-channel-blocking piece of metal just under the lid.

My fault for not being more careful. But again, it's something I never thought about. Now I do.

[buster73]

Good catch ! I always use a funnel with a sieve after finding plastic shavings in some cans once in a while. Just needs patience to watch 10 quarts passing the sieve.

[AlKidd]

Can you dig out one of the two dipsticks in my tank for me?

[OldSpool87]

I did something similar trying to suck out excess oil. The tube on the big syringe fell off into the tank with my 7 yr old standing next to me. He got brought up to speed on American English curse words. We took off the passenger rear wheel and fished with endoscope. Finally got the tube oriented across the drain hole in tank and with one victorious yank with some needle nose pliers, extraction. He hasn’t let me live that down.

[pkabush]

Nice job fishing that out. I was working on the heads on my 6.0 diesel awhile back and dropped a small Allen head bolt down one of the holes next to a injector. After hours of looking around with a borescope and fishing around with a magnet I came up empty. Common internet wisdom was that it “probably” fall to the bottom of the oil pan. So, with much trepidation and disgust I decided that would be its new home. Upon cleaning my tools, I found it stuck to the end of my magnet. Not sure how I missed it but, it sure was a good feeling knowing it wasn’t rattling around in the bowels of my motor.

[gled49]

The screen on the oil pump is on the scavenge side. Anything in the tank would try to go thru the pressure side oil pump gears. Good catch.

[emac911]

Good catch!! Glad you noticed it. We have all done similar things.

I removed the valve cover on my BMW and found one of the plastic rings on the oil jug laying next to a valve spring. I also dropped a small nut down the oil return hole in another BMW and by sheer luck was able to retrieve it with a tiny magnet from the pan.

[Rodney Nelson]

Thanks for posting this, I never even considered this as an issue. Now I know!

[Superman]

Originally Posted by gled49

The screen on the oil pump is on the scavenge side. Anything in the tank would try to go thru the pressure side oil pump gears. Good catch.

That's right. There is little to stop foreign material from getting into engine oil passages once it gets into the tank. Disaster averted!

[creaturecat]

fwiw: no foil on the VR1 20-50.

[bahman]

I used to cut-off the foil with a pocket knife before pouring in the oil. The 5-litre Liqui Moli containers do not come with a foil seal, which I switched to a few years ago.

[GH85Carrera]

I use a small screw driver to puncture the foil, and then cut it off by dragging the screw driver around the lip, and toss it in the trash. I make sure any remain foil is firmly attached or it gets pulled off. Then I pour it in.

One of my mechanic buddies had showed me a BMW engine that the owner of the car did his own oil changes. He just stuck the end of the oil bottle in the fill and squeezed until the foil popped off. He was having lots of issues and when they opened the engine, it had pieces of foil all over the engine components, and blocking some oil gaily passages.

It is certainly something to watch when adding oil.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

..... the owner of the car .... just stuck the end of the oil bottle in the fill and squeezed until the foil popped off..

I laughed out loud.

The first time I saw a foil seal on an oil container I thought "Now this looks like a bad idea."

[Bill Douglas]

I've never pushed it in.

I also poke it with a screw driver and carefully peel it off. I don't want even the smallest bit going into the engine and blocking an oil squirter

[93nav]

Originally Posted by Superman

I laughed out loud.

The first time I saw a foil seal on an oil container I thought "Now this looks like a bad idea."

My thoughts also.

[Mark Salvetti]

Something else to watch for us the little plastic collar that often gets left on the neck of the bottle when you break the anti-tamper seal.

Years ago I pulled off the engine oil cooler to replace the seals, and I found bits of one of those collars stuck in the inlet of the cooler.

Mark

[Tom F2]

What is "993 oil?"