Lost 1 liter of oil. Screwed?

[earbuilder]

Thanks everyone for the help!

The dip stick was dry all the way down and I obviously made a full oil change after this.

The total capacity according to the manual is 2.8L, I collected 2.2L from underneath (outside) the engine and with the vacuum pump in the drain pipe.

Those last 0.6L are elusive, I have not been able to drain them before and I do not worry to much about it.

[earbuilder]

Originally Posted by BruceS

Continue but check it very often for the next 2, 10, 30 & 90 minutes just in case crankcase pressure blew it out? Once saw a Cat bulldozer do that after the opposition spiced his oil...........

The old oil was just 40 hours old and quite unlikely to have been spiced. What else would cause increased crankcase pressure?

[Compass790]

Originally Posted by earbuilder

The old oil was just 40 hours old and quite unlikely to have been spiced. What else would cause increased crankcase pressure?

Worn out rings & bore will cause high crankcase pressure. But extremely unlikely in your case with only 250hrs on engine. If it starts easy it should be fine.

[CassidyNZ]

No alarms or lights, no harm done.

I had my Yanmar 4JH rip a frost plug out of the back of the block and pump all the oil out and first indication of trouble was alarms and lights. Shut the engine down after 3 seconds of alarms. No oil in the engine, all in the bilge.

The frost plug hole in the block was badly damaged so I did quite a major mod to the engine to stop the oil leak and make it work again but nothing to the innards. That was about 2500hrs ago, engine still has good oil pressure and runs as it always did.

[a64pilot]

Usually oil gallery plugs on engines are threaded plugs.
Would you mind describing what happened to yours and where?
I have a 4JHE

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Usually oil gallery plugs on engines are threaded plugs.
Would you mind describing what happened to yours and where?
I have a 4JHE

This was not a gallery plug, it was a frost plug in the back of the engine.

I cannot give a description of the event without it representing a thread hijack so I have posted a new thread providing details. Hope this helps

[David M]

You could always put a bore scope down the cylinders to check for scoring.

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by David M

You could always put a bore scope down the cylinders to check for scoring.

Running on low oil pressure would not cause bore scoring unless it ran for an extended period. Will likely only cause pick-up/seizure on crankshaft journals.

Bore scoring is generally caused by overheating.

[David M]

Running with no oil or completely broken down oil sure as heck can cause scoring. That my friend can cause overheating.

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by David M

Running with no oil or completely broken down oil sure as heck can cause scoring. That my friend can cause overheating.

No.

In the really unlikely event that an engine overheats because of low oil pressure it will have already run all the big end bearings and probably most of the mains. By the time the barrels get scored the engine will be making an almighty noise and will be moments from seizing, not on the cylinders but on the crankshaft.

You certainly won’t need to stick cameras into the cylinders to know that the engine is shagged.

[a64pilot]

Whatever it’s worth, engines are really oil cooled,
Cylinder heads are water cooled, but all the rubbing parts if you will the heat is carried away by the oil, so that as has been stated if you overheat due to lack of oil pressure, it’s the rubbing parts that will be ruined, meaning of course most likely the bearings.
Cylinder walls require actually very little lubrication, look at a two stroke for example, a 100 to 1 mix of oil and gas is extremely poor lubrication.

[Briggers]

Slightly off topic but related.
When I turn the ignition on I get a warning tone from the Volvo Penta ignition panel on my Hunter 430. I am assuming this is caused by a faulty oil pressure switch.
Am I correct?

[jimbunyard]

I always took it as a signal the alarm system was working...

[Briggers]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

I always took it as a signal the alarm system was working...

That would make sense but when press the alarm mute button, it goes off, release it and it comes back on.

It doesn’t go off when I start the engine either....

[jimbunyard]

Time to break out the multimeter...