Engine near to seize after oil change

[Jacopo]

Hello everybody,

As my first message on this forum, I ask for your help to understand what I’ve done wrong during a regular oil change.

I have a 1997 Ford Puma 1.7 VCT with 135000km on it. 2 days ago I changed the oil and the filter, putting the Ford Formula F 5W30 according to the owner’s manual specs of the car (The last oil change was done at 115000km by a mechanic, that filled the car with a 10W40), and a bigger oil filter (same diameter, no leaks, if you’re asking me if I’ve removed the old gasket and put a new one, the answer is yes). As I start the engine, everything works fine, the “oil pressure light” came on for a fraction of second, maybe because the new oil had to fill entirely the new filter, but after that the light came off again, and the engine sounded normal.

The day after, my mother took the car, and after a few km (less that 5 km, or 3 miles), the engine starts to do a ticking noise, roughly idling, and after few seconds its start to do horrible noise of metal scratching, like an engine without oil, stalling and starting again only after a long crank period. She didn’t realize that she should immediately stop, and she drive 1 or 2 more km to house.

After that, I checked the oil level and was fine, there where no leaks. I tried to put back the old smaller filter, but there where no improvements.

The question is: can a “viscosity downgrade” from 10w40 to 5w30 on old engines (where the oil was changed after long periods (average 15k miles and a lot of years, my fault), cause a severe engine issue, maybe because there where sludge that with the new oil had blocked the lubrification of the engine? What should I do now? (ok, I know.. maybe buy a new car..)

I’m pretty sure I’ve done a mess, and just kill a car.. 🙁

Topic

[Richard Kirshy]

Did the oil light appear while the motor was making the noise?
Possible that you had a defective or incorrect oil filter

[Jacopo]

The “oil pressure” and “engine check” lights are off, maybe because there is oil pressure near the oil pressure sensor but the engine still run bad.
I thought the same thing.. Bad or incorrect oil filter, in fact I tried to put back the old one, but nothing! Issue still there. But I’ve read somewhere that an incorrect filter can’t ruin an engine, If there are no leak and the oil pass through it. The diameter is correct, and the vendor where I buy it, gave me a filter from the ford’s catalogue. On the box is written the model of my car. :S

[Cameron]

If you typically run your engine with 20,000 miles between oil changes(as you described here) then the engine is not going to last very long. It is even worse when the wrong grade of oil is also used.(10w-40). Without much more frequent oil changes you are also going to get a serious build up of sludge inside the engine which can potentially retard lubrication flow.

[Jacopo]

At this point I think the only thing to do, is to inspect the oil pan if there is sludge that bocks the oil pump suction. I know that probably the engine is full of sludge, but cleaning (or changing) it, is too expensive for a car that can be found for 500$..

[Richard Kirshy]

If your oil light is not on, chances are you have pressure (unless the bulb is burnt out )
20,000km (12,500 miles) between oil changes is quite extreme.
My educated guess is that the motor has suffered some major internal damage from lack of oil flow.

If you plan on keeping the vehicle, may want to do some research for a replacement motor.

[Bluesnut]

Going that long between oil changes is not good for any engine no matter what the PR machines may say. What could be done is to drain the engine oil, make a probe out of a piece of coat hanger with a small loop on the end, and then rake the bottom of the oil pan through the drain plug hole.
If the loop comes out caked with sludge then that’s likely the cause of the problems.

As to desludging an engine I think that’s a waste of time on any engine.

[Jacopo]

I’ll try to make the last attempt to save the car, cleaning the oil pan, after I’ll get out from flu :sick:

We thought to demolish the car 1 year ago, so we didn’t change the oil for 12,5k miles.. Then we decided to keep the car a year more, so we changed the oil.. Veeery bad idea..

but yes, I agree.. probably the engine is gone.

[Brian Donovan]

I can’t say with first hand experience but I have heard of people having issues with using larger oil filters before where it will affect oil pressure and potentially collapse the inner filter and clogged oil flow. I honestly don’t know the likelihood of that but just thought I would throw my two cents in, best of luck.

[bill fugate]

A friend of mine years ago had his oil changed in his 79 Ford truck at a local place. The next day, his engine started sounding like you described and he found the new filter collapsed. He tried putting another filter on but it was too late the engine still sounded like a coffee can full of pennies. Luckily, he had an old wrecked truck on his property and we swapped it in. I would say your engine is dead. sorry for the rambling story but what happened to you sounded familiar.

[George Gallen]

here’s an off the wall theory……

Could when you filled the engine with the new oil, could a piece of the foil you puncture at the top, possibly dropped in with the oil?
Could that even cause a problem? maybe cause a blockage of the oil?

[Jacopo]

I don’t know if a little piece of foil can block the oil flow, but I’m sure that I removed the foil entirely before filling the oil..

But.. I took the car to a mechanic and he told me that the noise isn’t from the engine but from the timing belt.. He removed the timing belt cover and we have seen that the belt was shaking violently, making noise.. Probably the VCT (Variable Camshaft Timing) or a pulley are gone. Due to this failure the timing belt has probably slipped of a tooth, and the engine was out of phase, idling roughly.

At this point I don’t know if the problem was made by the oil change. We decided to demolish the car, and she died during her last trip to the junkyard (maybe timing belt broken?)..

After that we bought a new used car gasoline / methane.. More ecological than only gas! 🙂

Only for academic purpose, the question “why the car dies?” still remain opened. 😉

[Author]

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