AHHHHHH HAAAAAA !

Theres the problem .. you were using the oil guage ,, that thing is totally useless. when my car is full of oil that thing bareley reads off the red ( about an eigth of an inch ). when you check the oil on level ground with the engine hot and idling you MUST USE THE DIP STICK ! .... the dipstick is located under the filler cap. If you kept adding oil until that guage read level or full you DEFINITELY overfilled your engine and some needs to be drained out. We get this about once a month from new owners. Our fault we should have asked HOW you checked your oil. I imagine the crankcase breather ( polution control ) is sucking up the oil and spitting it back into your air box ( instead of crancase gasses ). I am surprised you didn't have a giant cloud of smoke behind you as well as the exon Valdez oil slick. well at lest you could tell people you were the " spy hunter car " you are now officially a broken in air cooled 911 owner and a member of the EPA violation team :-)

Anyway that mystery is solved.

Now on to that running hot condition ..hmmm.. that is VERY hot .... I would definitely start with Steves recomendations first..

ice

 

Hi Ice,
I put the extra oil in based on the dip-stick showing dry the first time I checked, not the guage reading. I still think you are right, I must have overfilled the oil. When it the guage reading useful? Does it change driving vs. stationary?
Thanks
Bob

 

My guage works cherry in my SC, though I think it must vary from car to car. The guage works accurately while warmed up, idling, and sitting still. If it is full sitting still, it usually shows 1/2 to just above the red while driving. Now just because mine works, does not really mean that yours will... Like Ice said, his is worthless.
Was the car smoking a lot when you pulled over, because if you overfilled by 3 quarts it really should have been dumping into the air box and making a rather large smoke screen. 9I would think). Good luck, I hope you get everything worked out

 

Hi Ryan,
There was some smoke just before I pulled over. Then the smoke seemed to be mostly from the oil on the surface of the hot engine parts. I really did not see a lot of blue engine smoke prior to pullling over.
Bob

 

Well I guess we will wait and see what the mechs come back with . Are they having any luck diagnosing the running hot problem ?

 

If my oil is around 3/4 of the dipstick max, during idle, the gauge sits from 1/4 to 1/2 of full scale. During driving, it's always at the bottom. Right after a fresh oil change the gauge needle is near the top. Without fail, when it just bounces off the bottom mark at idle, the oil is getting near the bottom mark on the dipstick as well.

 

There is a vent hose that goes from the oil filler nozzle to the airbox. The purpose is to carry vapors from the crankcase back to be burned with the normal air intake. I'm wondering if overfilling could actually cause oil to blow through this vent hose directly into the airbox.

 

UPDATE ON THE CAR:
Thank you all for concern and good advice...I think I need some more of your help.
I was told today that the reason for the car running hot to the red line and having all these oil issues is that the oil pump pick-up tube (that can apparently be seen by removing the sump plate and screen adn looking up with a flashlight) is broken. I am told that this repair wil involve taking the engine apart to the last nut and bolt for a total rebuild at great $$ cost. Please recall that I just bought the car, after a PPI and recent work had been done on the car. Please advise me.
Thanks
Bob

 

F..ck.

1- Has the PPI mechanic been working expressly at your request? Or did you just ask him to give you his views on the car, since he knew it, and had been working on it for the previous owner?

2- How many km's did you drive after delivery of the car? Can these oil tubes break, all of a sudden, without any prior, detectable indication, that a mechanic should notice upon an inspection? What i try to ascertain is whether there is any possibility that the car was ok when handed over to you, and due to an "act of God" the tube just went and broke, or, on the other hand, if there is no way that this could have happened in the short period you had the car and that there is no way a knowledgeable mechanic would not see it coming...

3- I'm a lawyer. Here I would go straight against the vendor and the mechanic( if repply to question 1 above is affirmative ), but then we don't have that "Caveat Emptor" issue you common law guys have to deal with.

What a situation....

 

Yes Bob, that really bites... I really feel bad for you and hope that maybe Steve Weiner (or one of the other knowledgable guys) will offer some better advice than the PPI mechanic (who would be mighty suspect right now imo).... Good luck!

Keith

 

Your PPI should not be done by the person who has been working on the car prior to you purchasing it. They really are not an independent entity at that point. They have performed work for the previous owner and may be in collusion with them.

I'm sorry, but I would be very suspect of previous owner and mechanics knowledge of the condition of the car prior to the sale. What kind of work receipts of prior work did they provide? What was done on your PPI? What kind of relation do they have? Straight customer/mechanic...brother/mechanic....just makes me really wonder about how legitimate this all is. Was the car under priced compared to the regional market?

Man, I really do feel for you.

 

Madmmac,
Only now do I realize how right you are. I hope others read your post and learn from it.

The previous owner suggested his mechanic for the PPI. (please understand I am a complete novice - and by the looks of this a complete idiot!)
I had the PPI done by his mechanic who had recently (one month ago) worked on the car. I figured, "who would know the car better than the guy that just had the engine out to fix some oil leaks and an overheating problem." WOW what a massive blunder that was!
The "PPI" consisted of the following:
1. Visual inspection of the exterior
2. Compression test
3. Leak down test
4. Tire tread thickness
5. A note that a CV joint may need some work.
COST: $176
I am not kidding! This was it! I have his "report" in writing. I am now fairly certain that he did not even drive the car!!!!
So...with this "clear PPI" I went ahead and bought the car. As you know from the rest of my post, I drove a total of 20-30 miles on the highway before the car started to overheat and at 69 miles I was being towed off the turnpike! OMG This has been a nightmare!
Bob

 

Go and speak to a lawyer..your story reeks of either (i) a gigantic amount of bad luck or (ii) a gigantic amount of bad faith from whoever sold you the car.

 

If the oil level gauge needle rose to mid-point during driving it sounds to me you have seriously overfilled your engine.
I'm sure it's the same for your SC as for my 993: The oil level gauge should read low during driving, in fact it should sit at the very bottom. What that means is that there is not so much oil in the sump, rather it's being worked around.
However ones you come to a standstill with idling engine, be it at a red light or whatever, oil slowly returns to the sump and given you are on level ground you should see the level on the gauge rise. In fact after 2-3 minutes with warm idling engine (ie. after termostat has opened to the oil cooler) the oil level should read between level and 3/4. If you see anywhere near this level during driving you have too much oil.

 

I will defer to the engine experts (perhaps this has been a problem I am unaware of on certain models?), but a "broken" oil pump pickup tube would be a VERY RARE occurance. The pickup is, of course, in a very "protected" area of the engine. Unless it somehow vibrated loose and actually fell out of the pump housing it is pressed into, I find it very curious that one would" break"???