Oil Change observation

I suggest you follow these tried and true steps:

1. place drain pan under oil drain plug
2. remove drain plug and allow oil to drain (good time to eat something or
have a beer)
3. after slowed to an occasional drip, replace drain plug and tighten
4. move oil catch pan under filter
5. remove oil filter and allow to drain completely
6. clean up drips and make sure the filter gasket did not stick to the
engine
7. rub a small amount of fresh oil on the new filter's gasket
7a. for vehicles with vertical mount filters (3.0L, 2.7L), fill filter with
fresh oil
8. re-install filter (get tight, but do not overtighten - 1 turn max after
hand tight)
9. add oil (I put in 5 qts for my '99 3.8L)
10. start engine, run for 2 minutes, turn off
11. check under vehicle for leaks
12. check oil level using dipstick (usually right at MAX)

Good luck and hope your engine was not damaged too badly by the oil
starvation.

Bob

 

Running your motor with little oil in it is gong to cause unecessary wear.

 

Why would you do something as stupid as running an engine with no oil in
the crankcase?

Matt

 

Somebody with your knowledge of cars should NOT be changing his own oil.

If someone drained all of your blood out, would you be surprised that
you died?

Matt

 

If only for a few seconds, maybe yes

WVK

 

Its not like I made a beer run on an empty crankcase, just ran it for a
few seconds.

WVK

 

And what is the purpose of doing this? To my what of thinking, anything
that is done which carries a real risk of damage and serves absolutly no
useful purpose .... is stupid.


Matt

 

....in which you probably put about 30,000 miles worth of wear on the
engine.

 

Wow. Your stupidity knows no bounds, as it seems. Or at least no bounds
you've displayed so far.

 

Hey Dan, with all due respect we all know YOU are smarter than me (and perhaps
the remainder or the readers combined). That said, stop with the bull shit
pontification and answer the "why" question.

Never mind if it is stupid or not - just tell us why, and SUBSTANTIATE your
opinion. Data would be useful.

Thanks.

Ken Pisichko

 

This "30,000" figure is based on what? Perhaps it is 80,000, or 20,000. What is
the basis of this opinion? Probably just a figure pulled out of the air? or...?

Yes, running an engine without oil is not good - otherwise it would be
recommended as a thing to do ((experience sez NOT). but to put exact figures on
this event is, perhaps a part of self aggrandization.

Substantiate your figures, Dan.

Ken Pisichko

 

I'll try my hand at tackling that one.

Another poster here (
<>) related a story about how at the
MoparFest
at NewHamburg they had a Sunfire with a 2.0 liter running with a brick on
the
accellerator for 20 minutes before it blew up.

Let's assume that this Sunfire's top speed on the highway was about 80Mph,
that's pretty consistent with the smaller engine vehicles I've driven. At
that speed
it would be equivalent to a brick on the accelerator.

So that works out to about 26 miles running without oil before
blowing up. (60/20 = 3, 80/3 = 26)

Assuming that a normal engine lifespan is 150,000 miles with an average RPM
of 1200
and average speed of 50Mph. Without oil, it's lifespan is 26 miles, or
..017% of it's potential lifespan. (26/150000 * 10) Another way of saying
this is the wear factor (constant) in terms of miles without oil is 5769
times greater than with oil. (150000/26)

So now we can estimate the amount of damage you did. Let's assume you ran
your
car at idle for 30 seconds without oil. I'll estimate that at idle your
running about half
the RPM you would be going at speed with the foot off the throttle, so the
damage is
more equivalent to 15 seconds at an average RPM used for the normal engine
lifespan
estimation . Thus, you put approximately the same amount of
wear that driving it for 24 hours would have done (((5769*15)/60)/60)=24
and at
the 50Mph average we are looking at about 1,200 miles worth of wear put on
the
engine.

Of course, this is assuming your letting it idle. If you were gassing it
for that time,
so your average RPM was more like 1200RPM, you would have doubled the amout
of life you took off the engine.

And this comparison is also based on a 2.0L. If your vehicle engine is
larger, you
would want to increase the amount of wear because the increased number of
unlubricated
surfaces greatly increases the chances of seizing, so presumably a bigger
engine would
fail faster, and not make it to 20 minutes without oil.

Also, you want to consider that the last 5-8 minutes of the life of the
Sunbird's engine
that by then the rings were so worn that the engine would not have passed
emissions
inspection without a rebuild, thus it was effectively used up. So assume
more like a
10 mintes lifespan without oil and adjust the calculations accordingly.

So yeah, maybe 30K miles of wear is excessive. But for a big V8 and someone
gassing
it without oil, I don't think that 10K miles of wear in 30 seconds is that
unreasonable.

And if your doing this every oil change, it's going to add up quick.

Ted

 

I have preformed this proceedure many times on many different vehicles
(VWs Oldsmobile, Chrysler, Honda, Chevy)over many years. When sold they
had anywhere from 75,000 to 175,000 miles and the engines were running
smoothly without any knocks, rattles, thunks, clanks, banging or
excessive oil consumposion. If what you say is true (30,000 miles worth
of wear) then several of them would have never made it to those milages.

That said you-all have convinced me to discontinue the practice.

WVK

 

In most vehicles it likely would do not harm. But a better procedure is
this. After the last drip, put in about a cup of fresh oil to drain out some
of the residual old oil. But I only do this on my motors that lack an oil
filter, and perhaps even an air filter, i.e.. (Honda 50cc motorcycle, Honda
snow blower, a vintage roto-tiller, & a Honda lawn mower, etc). Remember, an
oil is designed to break up the sludge and dirty oil and hold the solids in
suspension until you change the oil. A bad oil stays "clean".

Richard.

 

30 some posts on THIS? You people need to let this GOOOOO! And Dan, you
whipped up a good chunk of this. Ya'll are amazing. Wow!
(and no I have not read all of them)

Bill

 

You been watching the TV show "MONK"? Sounds like you wanted every last drop
of "dirty" oil out and expect to fill up with 100% new oil. you must be
thinking that this will extend your engine's life, when after the 10 sec.
dry start you just took a few thousand miles off it's life. Of course the
oil level will be a little lower on the dip stick after you just purged the
oil pump etc. of oil that is supposed to stay in the engine. Adjust the oil
level so that it is in the correct area on the dipstick, that would be alot
more accurate than putting in exactly "4.5 quarts" when you used a
non-standard procedure to expel more oil than usual.
I still can't believe what I read in the first post! LOL!!

 

JB³ wrote:

How many miles should I deduct for 5 seconds? As far as oil capacity
is concerned, I am still a bit puzzled why Chrysler states (in the
owners manual) the capacity as 4.5 qt. when it is apparently 5 1/4?

WVK

 

About a hundred miles*. As for the oil capacity, they're assuming that you
won't be running the engine dry during each oil change. The 4.5 quarts
should bring the level back to the full mark after a normal oil change. If
they said 5 1/4, people would be adding too much oil, which is also not a
good idea.

* Based on the poster who reported the 20-minute lifetime of the demo
engine that ran without oil. My assumptions: demo rpm: 6100 (122,000 total
revolutions in 20 minutes) your rpm: 750 (62.5 total revolutions in 5
seconds) average engine life: 200,000 miles
You can make your own assumptions, but based on mine, you used about 0.05%
of the total revolutions required to destroy that demo engine without oil.
There are many variables involved, so it's very difficult to determine with
any degree of confidence just how much actual wear was experienced. That
said, it's up to you to decide if you want to continue this practice. I
wouldn't do it, but that's me.

 

When the FTC did their own "run without oil" demo, using the advertised
additive, the motor ran out of life very very very quickly. They issued an
order to stop the promotions.

Richard.

 

Yep. It's always the variables that promise the most fun.

doc