Just curious here. . .but most manuals tell me to avoid overfilling the crankcase with oil, but nothing ever says what would happen if I did. Was teaching my daughter how to change oil this afternoon, and was letting her put in the new oil, when FedEx showed up with a delivery. I had to stop and sign for it, talked to the driver (he knew my dad,) etc. When I walked back into the garage, she had all but the last 2 quarts in the case in the engine. I drained it, salvaged what I could for the lanmower, and put in 5 more to bring it to the top mark on the dipstick.

Now I have to wonder. . .what would have happened had I not caught that? I'm sure it would have come out somewhere.

 

Bubbly foamed oil not good for bearings or oil pressure, also a lot of oil drag can make the engine run too hot & work too hard & you'll get crappy gas mileage. Then there is the question of what happens to the front & rear crankshaft seals due to excess crankcase pressure, some oil might find it's way into the intakes via the PCV. MAF would not like it, plugs would not like it.

Not really a nice scenario, good job you fixed it!

 

really it may be not good for seals, but usually oil leaks from dipstick and nothing really serious happens.

 

Your Oil pump is set so that it is at the closest point of the bottom of your pan. When "over-servicing" happens the crank shaft journals get submerged too. When this happens a "foaming" effect occurs. Foaming causes moisture. Moisture is water. Water and oil will cause steamed-dry spots in your combustion chamber and ultimately lead to such added damage as your head gaskets to fail.

When you said you recovered the oil for the lawnmower. You didn't say if you put fresh oil back in or simply 5 qts of your your original oil. That wouldn't be to good unless you're sure of no crud in your catch pan.

 

The biggest problem is oil getting whipped by the moving parts, which as others mentioned, generates foam, which will not lubricate as well as liquid oil. It obviously costs some energy to do that as well. The really damaging thing that can happen is with viscous oil in low temperatures and high rpm; the crankshaft can pull the oil into a ring, so on the next revolution, it hits the oil slung up from the previous revolution.

The 4 liter engine has a "windage" tray that's designed to keep oil in the sump separated from the moving parts to prevent excessive oil slinging. But if you put too much oil into the crank case, it will overflow this tray, rendering it ineffective. So it's best not to overfill.

If you suspect overfill, do not start the engine, but drain the oil until its level on the dipstick shows "normal". You want to wipe the stick each time you check it for a more accurate reading.

 

Gentelmen! Overqiled engine really makes a lot of foam, but oil leaks everywhere, especially from dipstick tube (dipstick jumps out) and oil level goes down in 5 miles before engine got serious damage.

We had four ore five overoiled engines at work last year. MB engines have vent tube in block and when engine overoiled engine sucks oil in air intake and so much smoke.... clowds of blue smoke....

why it happenes... ? we have oil filling pump like gas filling mashine and we use to type with small keyboard how much oil to fill.. we do mistakes

Ones I filled my engine with 10 litres of oil... engine looked like a greas box. I tried to suck some oil with oil change mashine, but when I started engine I got dipstick jumped out and oil leaking from dipstick and frome some unknown holes in engine.... and blue smoke

well, now runs well, still runs

 

I had just cleaned my catch pan and prepared a 5-gal can for taking to the recycling place, so I probably could have put some of it back into the Aerostar safely, but. . .I thought I'd play it safe and use 5 new quarts. The old mower burns enough oil I will go through the excess between now and when I have time to rebuild it. I did run it through a relatively fine strainer, too.

 

Thanks, gentlemen.

Dear sweet daughter says it is cool that I have this many friends who will jump in and help me out with something, and thart I should drive her little car so she can have the Aerostar. She should guess again.

 

sounds like she's old enough to crawl underneath and learn first hand what warm oil feels like running down the arm sleeve removing the filter or drain plug

tell her not to wipe her itching nose

wife claimed for years that she didn't know how to check the oil dipstick.
what a fool i was.

caught her with the hood up one time after the engine had made funny sounds when she started it.
she had the dipstick in her hands after pulling wiping inserting pulling and then checking the level. where did she learn that?

 

20 this month, and she knows how how to service oil, change tires, etc. She would have been in the midst of it with me today but had a meeting at school. I'm proud of my little girl. . .but I am not going to trade her my Areostar for her little ricemobile. She wants me to find her an Aerostar, but no luck yet. She says she will drive the Tempo if I can ever figure out why it doesn't go.

 

great daughter dave,

mine drives a 40 passenger diesel manual tranny yellow kid bus. she was a bank manager but wanted more to be a stay at home mom.
found that one income will not raise a house full of kids
she's 5'3" and spins that huge bus around at dead ends like a long haul trucker. bought her a car in college, which she never checked or changed the oil in. i paid for the outcome of that.
now she tilts the hood forward on that diesel and checks. runs all the tires, checks underneath, knows how to check brakes, etc.

the bus kids tow the mark or else they walk

they call her for all the long trips she'll take.

go figure?

 

A friend's sister did this to her new (at the time - mid 80's) Trans Am - she filled the oil until she could "see it coming up in the oil cap" so it was REALLY overfilled! She ran it that way for a day, with blue smoke coming out of the tailpipe...

The engine seals of that car prematurely blew about a year later, but I'm not sure if it was because of this incident, or of all of the other incidents she'd have with it. She was a car's nightmare - overfilling the tires, letting the car run on fumes until the fuel was completely exhausted etc.

 

I knew someone who never changed the oil of her car since she bought it; she just added oil as it got low. When she developed engine trouble, I found some unbelievable sludge in the heads. It turned out the head gasket blew, but even before that, she was burning oil something aweful. But I am told that that engine would have done had those problems even with proper oil maintenance. It was a mid-70's Chevy Vega, with an aluminum block that was designed with no cylinder liners, and a cast iron head that did not like to stay tightly bolted to the block. I think one of the car rags recently stated that that car was on pretty much everyone's short list of the worst cars ever made.

 

if this mid-70's chevy still runs may be it was not so bad to add oil )))) LOL

I remember old Opel RWD cars with early SOHC engines... they still run... but rare

 

My wife had a 76 chevy Monza (dressed up little car made out of Vega parts) with that 4-cylinder aluminum block / cast iron head mixture you mentioned. I got 188,000 miles out of that car, but I had to have the engine sleeved, the head remanufactured, installed a transmission cooler, and went through about 6 water pumps. Seems I was always working on that car. Had the big 3-speed automatic like in an Impala, and they tried to make up the difference with this little-bitty torque converter. You calculated 0-to-60 with a calendar instead of a stopwatch. No air conditioning, which was tough in these Alabama summers.