• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Changing the Oil on a 100-4

Share this page

Pizzi348 said:
Any ideas on how to get 1 quart of oil out of the car?
Click to expand...

Drain it all and start over, honestly. On the positive note, you don't have to change your filter again.
 
13 pints (Imperial) includes charging the original filter, remember the w/shop manual is english, this wouldn't be the cause of your oil pressure problems, though I wouldn't want my crank slapping through that extra oil at any revs!
 
So more oil wouldn't cause the pressure to rise? It sounds like it would, no? More oil, more pressure build up? (wishful thinking?).

Do you think any damage was done with too much oil in my car?
 
I'm using Collector’s Choice Motor Oil 20W/50 with ZDDP
 
From memory the filter is on the return side, so the oil pressure probs shouldnt be from the filter, more likely a gallery partially closed, motor rebuilt recently?
Resetting the relief may only be masking a delivery issue
 
The filter comes in a cardbord box over here, then when you pull it out sometimes its shrink wrapped which you remove and then wipe some oil on the black o ring and then tighten about 1/2-3/4 turn after the o ring makes contact, just as a thought, there wasnt a card/plastic insert inside the threaded section that now may be lodged in the filter adaptor housing causing restriction?
 
Just out of curiosity you might pull the valve cover and see what is going on up there. Not likely to fix or even identify your problem, but if you see oil coming from the little holes on the rockers you know oil is circulating up there (you have to check with the car running). There is also a feed line that goes to one of the rocker pedastals, number three if I recall right, it is easy to strip the pedestal, which most likely would cause lower pressure, but I suppose if something got misaligned it could concievably raise it.

Lastly, with the oil change did you do anything besides drain the oil, change the filter (spin on and off, nothing with the housing?) and refill with oil.
 
Inspecting the oil filter first is the best next step. Making sure the guage is not the issue as well.


If you care for more work I would suggest the following course of action (this is what I would do others may differ so please use this as just a suggestion). In the past I had a high oil pressure issue that was caused by blocked oil ways so I have chased this issue once before. I followed this and came to the conclusion to remove the engine and found that after heating the engine up after a really bad rebuild the oil passage in the crank all clogged and I ripped through all the bearings… Worst case, most likely not your issue as your engine was running fine prior to changing out the oil filter assy.

One course of action is to always revert back to the old oil filter assy.

Possible course of action….

1) Get the oil to the correct level, +/- a 1/2 quart should not make that big of a difference.

1) Start near where you did the work. Remove the spring and plunger on the oil relief valve. Reseal the screw cap and run the engine with the spring and valve out. If you have normal oil pressure the issue is the valve, replace with new. If not replace the spring and plunger and cap. This is simple device that plays a critical role so eliminate it early.

2) Do the next easy thing. Remove the rocker cover and run the engine for a moment or two to observe the oil flow. If you are getting a good steady drip like flow from the top of the rockers good, if nothing you have a oil passage clog. This can be messy and others might have better suggestions on how to check oil flow at the top.

One way I have done this was to start when the car has had time to drain like the AM. Remove the cover, observe the amount of oil, Reinstall the cover, run the engine for 5 minutes. quickly remove the cover and observe the oil. You can tell if the oil has been flowing for the most part.

3) Back to where the problem started but a little more work. Remove the oil pan. It's a pain but I would ensure that the hole near the oil pump is clear for oil to pass. If in changing the mounting bracket you dislodged gasket material or sealer it could have got into the relief side for the oil relief valve and created a clog, this would in effect disable your relief valve. This will also give you a good look at the bottom of the pan and you will see what condition the inside of the engine really is in.

Reseal and install the oil pan, making sure not to use too much sealant and keeping the area where the oil pump bleeds off clear. I like the brush on gasket sealer so you can control what goes on the gasket.

4) If after all of the above the oil pressure is still high, I would have a local shop take a look at it. I don’t think you created any damage with a high pressure but if there is a blockage you could be starving a journal or bearing and that will create an issue quickly.

Next course of action I took (not recommending unless you are comfortable with this level of engine work) was to take the caps off the rods and inspect the bearings. This is where I found signs of my issue……..


Hope these help.
Michael.
 
If all was OK before the filter exchange, it kinda suggests what has changed is at the filter/filter adaptor interface, given at low revs the psi seems correct and at higher revs the psi shoots up, and then backs off as revs are decreased, leaving one to believe there is a restriction, this appears to have been ocurring prior to working on the relief valving
 
I don't get this. According to the service manual, the oil pressure becomed progressively less as the filter gradually becomes choked.A drop from a normal 55 psi to 30-35 "is an indication that the element is being by-passed".Shouldn't that entail an even lower pressure if the filter adapter or the filter itself is blocking? I assume that the gauge oil pipe picks up the oil pressure after the oil has passed the filter.

I also experienced an increase in pressure when I changed from standard to spin-on two years ago. I assumed this was due to a more open filter flow. Everything works well but the pressure is a bit on the high side at 3000rpm.

I follow this link with great interest. Thanks.

Georg
 
Hi Oslo 100. Would you state specifically how high your oil pressure is at 3000 RPM.----Regards-Keoke
 
Around 6 kg/cm2 (around 4,5 before the spin on conversion). 3,5=55psi. I have however not calibrated the gauge so this could be very wrong.
Would an old oil pressure gauge tend to show a too high or too low value?

Georg
 
Ok I recall when I added a oil filter adapter the gasket was not totally correct and required some modification to allow the holes for oil in and out to completely align. Did you recall any issues?

personally I would pull the thing off and re-inspect that gasket.


Just a random thought.
Michael.
 
Yes Michael the sealing gasket is a known problem. Similarly, the adapter has in some case been rotated 180 Degrees which also results in a blockage. I have requested that the car be put back in its original condition to insure that the current ,new filter has not been modified to make it compatible with more modern engine interfaces, and possibly point up that this is an inherited problem caused by the PO..--Keoke
 
Thanks for all the input everyone. I'm going to get some time to check it out today and will work on many of your suggestions. If I can't figure out the problem form here, I'll probably bring it to someone with some knowledge about cars. Trouble is finding a shop around here that specializes in Healey's or British cars in general.
 
oslo 100
I think your correct, as after looking at the schematic in the manual (if i'm reading it right!)the oil is taken from the pump, then through the filter, then past the pressure gauge and then into the motor oil galleries
 
Ok. After all of the inspections, etc - turns out the oil filter was too tight?? Does that make sense? I've had cars leak oil from not putting the filter on tight enough - so I wanted to make sure I tighten this enough. Turns out it was too much. This is the oil difference between the car working now, and it not working before.
 
Back
Top