Another unseasonably warm day in MD presented a great mid-winter driving opportunity. Then this happened. Whoops.
Luckily it was just a failed oil filter. Luckier still, I had a spare and a case of oil in the garage so all was not lost. After 90 mins of clean up and fixing, I still got this.
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Hate it when that happens! Was it an orange FRAM filter? Changed oil in Miata, put and put oil drain vessel in garage. Went for drive and clipped vessel on reentry! Didn't spill all 4.5 qts but enough to make a real mess. In past, I've double ringed (the seal was left on car and new one on filter). That's good for pumping all the oil out too.
@Sam Brown Sorry that happened, but that happens when the weather is cold with some filters.
Remember that if you have an external oil filter and cooler that gets it's oil right from the oil pump, when you start your engine at outside temps under 50F and the oil is thick, the oil pump will put full oil pressure up to and over 200 psi out through the external hoses, filter and cooler, especially of you're running 20W-50 "summer" oil. The engine has its' own oil pressure regulator, but that all happens after the oil returns from the external filter/cooler into the engine.
If you were using a run-of-the-mill FRAM filter, it can't take that kind of pressure and will first balloon out and then rupture. As you've seen, it ain't pretty.
Four things you can do:
If you do drive the car in winter temps, even with 1 - 4 above, I would let it sit and idle for a minute or two before setting out, just to warm the oil up to more like liquid and less like jello.
Now that you've installed a new filter, get under there to check all of the hose connections to make sure there aren't other leaks caused by the high oil pressure. I doubt there will be line leaks, but'cha nevah know.
i thought it was an English car there for a minute
@Gordon Nichols posted:@Sam Brown Sorry that happened, but that happens when the weather is cold with some filters.
Remember that if you have an external oil filter and cooler that gets it's oil right from the oil pump, when you start your engine at outside temps under 50F and the oil is thick, the oil pump will put full oil pressure up to and over 200 psi out through the external hoses, filter and cooler, especially of you're running 20W-50 "summer" oil. The engine has its' own oil pressure regulator, but that all happens after the oil returns from the external filter/cooler into the engine.
If you were using a run-of-the-mill FRAM filter, it can't take that kind of pressure and will first balloon out and then rupture. As you've seen, it ain't pretty.
Four things you can do:
- Don't start or drive your car under 45F or:
- Get a stronger filter like a WIX or Fram racing version of your filter
- Run 5W-30 oil in the winter
- Install a pressure regulating oil pump cover for your external oil hoses to limit the oil pressure to 125 PSI Max. That's the best alternative and can be done with the engine in the car.
If you do drive the car in winter temps, even with 1 - 4 above, I would let it sit and idle for a minute or two before setting out, just to warm the oil up to more like liquid and less like jello.
Now that you've installed a new filter, get under there to check all of the hose connections to make sure there aren't other leaks caused by the high oil pressure. I doubt there will be line leaks, but'cha nevah know.
NEVER use Fram oil filters. They are hype with no substance, advertising fluff.
I once blew a Fram filter up, swapped to Wix with no other changes and never went back. Period.
5w30 is too light in my opinion, 10w40 is as light as I'll go in an aircooled engine, but yeah 20w50 in the summer.
The Berg cast-iron oil pressure relief cover is the best solution, it sends the extra pressure back to the input side of the pump gears, instead of blowing up your filter, cooler, and lines.
It was a cheapo one from AutoZone I put on when I did the 300 mile break-in change. Didn’t have a Wix on hand, and figured it was only 700 more miles until the break-in valve adjustment - what’s the worst that could happen….? Guess I learned that one.
Wix on there now, though only 100 miles from 1,000 at this point…. 🤷🏻♂️
What's worse is when the stock oil cooler explodes due to a pressure relief valve sticking and it did it twice !.............Bruce
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It's a little scary to consider how many tiny parts we seldom think about - some having to do their jobs perfectly a thousand times a minute - stand between us and disaster.
Maybe that's why I never took up flying.
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@Sacto Mitch posted:.
It's a little scary to consider how many tiny parts we seldom think about - some having to do their jobs perfectly a thousand times a minute - stand between us and disaster.
Maybe that's why I never took up flying.
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I hear you there, Mitch! And the only thing I can think of that's worse- voluntarily jumping out of that plane while it's still perfectly good!
I guess I'm just not one to tempt fate too often...
And oh yeah, tough break, Sam! We've all been there. Fortunately no real damage done.
@ALB posted:I hear you there, Mitch! And the only thing I can think of that's worse- voluntarily jumping out of that plane while it's still perfectly good!
I guess I'm just not one to tempt fate too often...
And oh yeah, tough break, Sam! We've all been there. Fortunately no real damage done.
@ALB, skydiving is fun! If something goes really wrong, you don’t have to worry about it for long. 
My old boss had a helicopter and we would fly off to regional customers from time to time, mostly to impress them. One of the first times I went up with him he said, "Not to worry. It's just a million parts rapidly rotating around a few oil leaks, all waiting for metal fatigue to set in!"
Years ago at the Lakland airshow in Florida, we all camped the airshow weekend at the Helicopter area munching peanuts and Coors Lite's . I hit it off well with Chuck Aaron the wildly enthusiastic and zany guy that flies ( in shorts and flip flops) the special built Red Bull chopper. We talked about both being cancer survivors, doing crazy stuff as kids sharing that I drove NASCAR at Pocono and made two runs on the Olympic Bobsled run in Innsbruck.... funny thing as both of us had done Innsbruck and he too got yelled at by the German Driver for throwing body weight on the high wall turns! Then Chuck talks Ed Thompson an Aviation Magazine Editor that I knew to go up and ride along early the next morning ( He needs the entire airspace , not just show field center) doing what turned out to be some serious rolls and loops aerobatics. When they landed, Ed gets out face plants himself onto the ground kisses the sand while praising God. We helped Ed up Pilot Chuck yells "ALAN, GET IN", No hesitation as I shook my head "oh no" missing out on a once in a lifetime opportunity and to this day regret not going up.
Some back history: Red Bull came to Chuck Aaron and gave him an... open end budget to build the BO -105.
Chuck Aaron - Life Upside Down - YouTube
2015 Wingnuts Flying Circus - Chuck Aaron Red Bull Helicopter Aerobatics!!! - YouTube
Wix Racing 51515R is what we use and what would have been on there initially. You can get away with a cheaper filter in the summer, but don't. As you can see, the cheaper filters just won't hold back the pressure on a cold day and make a mess. So glad it happened in the garage and not away from the house... As mentioned above, ACVW's make a TON of oil pressure when dead cold.
From your 2nd photo, your oil pressure light does not seem to be on, so thats good, but your temperatures are dead cold. That is not uncommon on a cold day, especially in a full flow motor with external filter and cooling, plus the delay time in temp. feedback can be a few minutes. It is not uncommon for me to test drive this time of year and not see good oil temps for 20-30 minutes. That said, your needle is BURIED n the cold, so make sure your oil temp wire dint come off your sender. It doesn't hurt anything, just nice to know what your oil temps actually are. A quick test of the sender/gauge: you can take the wire off your oil sending unit and touch kit directly to ground (engine case or engine tin screw, and the oil temp gauge should peg to full hot when you do that.
The 51515R has great burst strength but it's designed for looser bearing clearances and high rpm racing situations where the engine will be taken down and refreshed more often. The T-71 media allows it to flow 28 gpm in a compact package (and Wix claims an increase of hp) but it's at the expense of the size of particles it can filter- nominal micron rating is 60 (.00236", which doesn't seem like much, but remember that bearing clearances are normally only slightly bigger in a street engine) while the 51515 has great burst strength as well, is rated at 21 microns (.00082") yet still flows sufficiently (7-9 gpm) for anything but the most hyper street engine.
I like my Canton oil filter. It filters fine and no chance of it bursting.
@Michael McKelvey posted:I like my Canton oil filter. It filters fine and no chance of it bursting.
The Canton is an excellent product, Mike. They claim down to 8 micron filtration, and the replacement cartridges aren't outrageously priced.
Thanks @chines1. Yes, the Wix was on there from the shop. I just got caught cutting a corner and putting the cheap one on at the 300 mile break-in change because I didn't want to wait for the new pack of Wix filters I had ordered to arrive. Lesson learned on instant gratification.
I'm mildly concerned about your oil temp gauge comment though. That needle has never registered a thing since it was delivered last August until over an hour into driving . At about an hour (which usually means on the way home) it starts to lift off the bottom and settle in a normal range. I kind of thought that was normal based on your previous comment that "those things take forever to register", but now I think I should have asked what forever actually means. If that doesn't sound right, I'll put it on the spring cleaning list with our mutual friend in MD, unfortunately we're still sorting some other things, which i'm hopeful the 1k mile valve adjustment will address.
For those inquiring, it was a tick under 60 on the day in question.
Pressure increases as RPMs increase, so I've seen filter explosions ln even warmer days when coupled with a lot of instant RPM. It cane tricky to get a proper start, especially after sitting for a while, and not hit some higher RPMs, so I get it.
On oil temps, an hour seems a bit long, but not unheard of in cooler weather. The sender is just a rheostat that has varied resistance with changes in heat, so it either works or doesn't. I'm inclined to say that it's fine, and we'll keep an eye on it and we approach warmer months also. If you see this trend continue when it's much hotter outside, then we may want to try a different sending unit just to see if you get a different reaction on the gauge.
@chines1 posted:I'm inclined to say that it's fine, and we'll keep an eye on it and we approach warmer months also. If you see this trend continue when it's much hotter outside, then we may want to try a different sending unit just to see if you get a different reaction on the gauge.
10-4, thanks again!
Sam, to check your temp, right after shutdown, touch the metal around the temp sensor or the sensor itself with an instant read digital food thermometer. This will give you an idea of how long it takes and what temp you're at.
That's how I discovered that my sending unit(Speedhut gauges) reads 20 degrees low on the gauge. It gets up to about 160-170(on the gauge) so I thought it wasn't warming up enough. But in actuality it's 180-190, which is perfect with the 190 thermostat I installed.
And I'm with ALB on the filter, I use the 51515 Wix(1515 at NAPA). It has the same burst strength as the "R" but finer filtering. It is a Ford V8 filter, so I'm sure the flow through a puny VW oil pump won't overload it.
Thanks @DannyP, I will definitely give that technique a try when the weather improves. Appreciate that a lot. I'm going to go with whatever @chines1 recommended on the filter since I am definitely the least technically skilled person in this thread and he built the car. Logically, your point on skipping the R makes complete sense though.
No problem Sam. I'm not the only one that uses the Wix but skips the "R" in the part number. Nothing really technical about it, I like the potentially cleaner oil from finer filtration is all.
@Sam Brown I'm sure the non-R filter would be fine and I was not familiar with its finer filtration, although just about anything will be finer than the stock wire mesh VW screen, which essentially keeps part numbers from circulating but thats about all...
I've been running the Wix 51515 (non-R) on my car for almost 20 years, now and it's been working fine. I heard about the finer screening on a non-race filter about 15 years ago and switched over from the "R" version to the non-R with no issues.
At least now we know how Danny gets that coveted garage BBQ flavor in his steaks. He uses a "multi-purpose" instant read cooking thermometer. For lots of stuff! 
I use the standard 51515.
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I was also wondering about the 'buried' oil temp needle in your photo, and it probably IS a sensor that's defective, not matched to your gauge, or connected with dodgy wiring. Maybe to start, remove the wire from the sensor, clean the connection well and see if that makes the gauge behave differently.
As you've discovered, oil temp is a big deal on these cars, so the more we know about where it's at, the better we can manage it. And unlike modern cars, the driver does have to 'manage it' by watching the gauge and driving accordingly.
Even in the coldest weather, the needle should start to move off the mark about 5-10 minutes after startup. Only then should you give it any serious revs (try to stay under 3500 until then and maybe even less when it first turns over).
This was common practice on all cars in the 1950s, but is largely unnecessary with the tech on today's cars.
When you get the sensor/gauge sorted, you'll learn to rely on it to tell you just how warmed up the engine is and at what point you can really get into it safely.
If you have an external oil cooler, it may have a thermostat that routes oil around the cooler until the oil's warm (but it may not). If you don't have that oil thermostat (my car doesn't) the oil flows through the cooler all the time and will take a very long time to warm up in cold weather. (On some days, it can take 20-30 minutes, so you really need to watch the gauge as you drive.)
With oil temp, knowledge is power, and a lack of knowledge can leave you with no power at all.
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Great advice above. While you are checking the sensor connector, make sure you have a ground strap between the chassis and the engine (or strap from chassis to transmission and strap from trans to engine).
I also use the Wix 51515 (actually I buy mine from Napa so it's the Napa Gold 1515).
I like my Canton oil filter. It filters fine and no chance of it bursting.
For my Porsche SC engine oil filter & oil cooler setup I use either Bosch or Baldwin spin-on filters which seem fine.
