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I recently redid the head gaskets and valve cover seals on my Shadow’s 3.0L v6. It was running great for about a month or so with almost 600 miles since the rebuild.
The past few times I have driven it, I have noticed a ticking sound, which I believe is a lifter. today on the way home it seemed a little louder than normal. I decided to pour about a third of a seafoam bottle into the oil reservoir to see if it was possibly sludge blocking any oil pathways. I drove it about 20 miles back to my house, and at stoplights seemed to idle fine, but there was a lot of smoke coming off of the car (I had spilled some seafoam on the block so I assumed that is why).
When I pulled into my driveway the idle was much lower and the ticking nois(es) had gotten significantly louder. I checked the dipstick and I couldn’t get a reading so I now assume all my oil leaked onto an exhaust component or burned internally.
What would cause this? Did the seafoam ruin the gasket or cause a leak to form somewhere?
Will the engine be alright provided it wasn’t overheating during this incident?
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ooh dear fear not don’t worry too much yet my friend…
how many miles are on your car first of all? and why did you do the head gaskets where they leaking? has the car ever over heated? is the ticking noise you hear more of a tinny tick, or a knock?
it is important too note that even though Seafoam is supposed too break apart sludge deposits it thins the oil, this is why when you use sea foam or other additives you use them with extreme caution. i do not recommend using seafoam in the crank case of a very high mileage engine… i have heard of cases where they break loose excessive amounts of sludge and it gets caught in the oil pick up. i have heard of cases where they thinned the oil too much for the warn out tolerances of the high mileage engines and caused bearings too spin…
i myself once made the mistake of adding too much Marvel Mistery Oil too my 1998 regal, and it spun a rod bearing… i my self use seafoam but with extreme caution.
my suggestion let the car set for a while and let the oil cool, then check the oil again, if there isn’t any reading still have a look at the engine all around even under the car, look for anything that may be wet with oil, a leak of that magnitude and something should be wet, since you just got done with doing a head gasket job and rocker cover gaskets check those first… then look around the engine for anything wet an see if its oil.
It has 120,000 miles. Luckily I found the source of the leak, it was in the oil pressure sender unit, so hopefully once that component is replaced, I can simply change the oil.
Since I turned it off before it seized or made even worse noises I am hoping it had just run out of oil when I pulled in the driveway, but the damage may have already been done like you said.
The reason I changed the seals is because there was an unknown coolant leak when I bought the car, and I figured while I have the engine out I would do all the accessible seals and clean the build up in combustion chambers. I used sea-foam to flush out any sludge or contaminants from the whole process.
Thanks for the suggestions! I will take caution when working with high mileage engines in the future!
Also, make sure you are using the right filter (in general MOPAR for Dodge/Chrysler, but often ACDelco). I believe Purolator is currently manufacturing Mopar right now. On some engines, they are very sensitive to the correct filter and that can aggravate your ticking sound.
Good luck with your oil leak.
Thanks! I believe the filter I have for it is a purolator. I am going to install a mechanical oil guage where the electronic sender was, since the ECU clearly does not need an oil reading to run 😛 , I just have to figure out how to efficently make use of the 3 or 4 feet of tubing the kit provided lol
The filter on there right now has a date code of 02 09 07 so I imagine however that code is read that is one old filter. Will certainly be changing that!
good you found the sorce of the leak, a drop in oil pressure may have caused some oil starvation too critical components as well as thinning the oil too much causing a drop in critical vescocity, this is critical too components such as main and rod bearings, these HIGHLY rely on pressure too keep a oil film between them, a leak such as a oil pressure sender unit could cause severe drops in oil pressure…
changing your oil just might save the engine, so before you freak out, do a oil change and get the sea foamed oil out and get a good look at the oil that is coming out when you are changing it, look for metallics in the oil and the filter especually drain the oil from the filter if you can have a look inside the filter for metallics, if the oil is clean you probably are ok, if it isn’t clean with metallics i would sadly suspect engine damage too internal components such as main or rod bearings.
for further diagnosis check oil pressure, if your main or rod bearings are damaged or scored there may have been excessive clearances built between them, this will cause a drop in oil pressure, look up the oil pressure spec for your vehicle, with the engine running the oil pressure should sit roughly… at spec and should stay relatively steady expect a tad bit of fluxuation here and there, low oil pressure or excessive fluctuation are not good.
good luck.
Nice to hear you found the source of the leak. Give us an update after you get the part installed. In the mean time you might find this helpful.
yea there is also a section in the beginning that has step buy step instructions for finding and identifying leaks as eric has shown you 🙂
as eric said keep us posted B)
Thanks for the suggestions everyone! This site is very friendly and optimistic. Will look through that guide and check other areas too while I am working on it. Happy to hear it is possible little or no damage was done besides the leaking component.
My next challenge will be finding where to drill holes in the firewall and route the pressure hose for the gauge :silly: The sunpro gauge kit I ordered also only gave me maybe 3 feet of nylon tubing when I probably need at least 6. Will probably order a copper tubing kit. I would mount on the cowl behind the hood but the wipers and hood would probably collide with it.
Ok, so I sealed the leak by temporarily installing the gauge with the included nylon tube, turned the engine with the ignition grounded to get oil in the system, then reconnected ignition and it started right up! Lifters not loud anymore but the original ticking noise is still there. While the engine was running I did a little listening around and concluded the ticking is coming from the crankshaft area. Maybe a bearing or the oil pump?
Gauge is reading in the operational range I believe. At idle was at 70 psi cold, and once warmed up it went down to somewhere between the 20 and the 25 marks. Revving the engine brings it back up and and cruising RPM I believe it sat around 50 psi. So far no other leaks and no oil is burning.
Another side note, it took less than 5 minutes for it to warm up to full operating temp with no driving, seems a little fast. I have been told that cars from that era ran hotter for emissions control so that could be it. Water gauge has always fluctuated between 1/3 and 2/3 marks when driven depending on how much air the engine is receiving.
First picture is at operating temp, second at first startup
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