Sudden loss of oil S2 - Advice needed

[Hornsey Boy]

Hi All

Looking for some advice and reassurance

I was driving my S2 Esprit when I suddenly noticed a lack of oil pressure and smoke in my rear view mirror. I  pulled over in a panic to find a huge pool of oil on the floor.

Checked the oil level on the dip stick and it was showing nothing ! I had a look in the engine bay and saw that the connection from the oil pressure sender to the gauge had come away. I managed to reconnect it, put some oil back in, and it held.

The question is, how much damage may I have done to the engine whilst driving it with oil peeing out  from the sender ?. (I covered about 3.5 miles in all) 

Also what is the best way forward -

1. Do I just fill it back up with oil and drive as normal ?

2. Drain the fresh oil and do another oil and filter change ?

Any advice or reassurance would be very much appreciated

Dragan

 

[The Real Stig]

1. Check oil pressure. Lower might indicate damage. 

2. Check compression and do a video inspection in the cylinders  

3. Send (old remaining?) oil to analysis  

4. Cross your fingers

[Hornsey Boy]

Hi Stig

The pressure seems better than before, I filled it with 20W/50 oil. I think the previous owner used a lighter oil 

What compression should I be getting, the engine had a rebuild back in 2017 before I got the car and has covered minimal mileage  

I have my fingers crossed and every lucky charm to hand too 

[C43]

if you have any of the oil that was in the engine when the pipe came off to hand I agree with sending it for analysis, its the only way to tell as far as I can see.

good luck

C43

[Barrykearley]

Fill it up, drive and check - then check again.

as long as there’s oil in that engine you ain’t gonna make anything worse

[CarBuff]

If it makes you feel better, about 25 years ago a branch blew across the road I was driving on. Like a straw through lumber by a hurricane, it poked a hole through my front oil cooler and caused a sudden loss of pressure. (Not a scratch on the car otherwise!) Drove about 90 seconds with no pressure, and a meter-wide puddle appeared under the car when we found a safe pull-over spot.

20 years and 50,000 miles later, when we refreshed our engine, the con & main bearings were found to be in excellent shape.  So no harm was done.

 

 

[drdoom]

As long as you were not loading the motor substantially nor revving greatly whilst driving without oil feed/pressure, 3.5 miles is unlikely to have caused much harm at all. 907 motored Esprit have been well known to blow out the big end bearings when driven hard with low oil levels, particularly around sustained corners with plenty of revs. How many miles on the cams/tappets since they were renewed, if at all?

A good friend was about to drop me off after an evening at the pub when we were overtaken by some sort of domestic drama playing out in the rain soaked alley near my apartment. A rather distraught young woman jumped into my lap, having yanked open the unlocked passenger door and then, ranting on about us taking off after ( her other half ?) who had already flashed past on foot, crossed a leg over the console and flattened my mate's foot onto the throttle! The BMW 6 wailed with revs before our uninvited guest was yanked back away from the pedals. That got her on her way once again so I looked over to see my buddy's perturbed countenance, " I think she did something to my engine. " he grumbled. This was a very recently and thoroughly rebuilt motor which had just then had its oil pump drive chain flung off and down into the sump. There was, of course, no oil pressure showing on the gauge. The motor was making little noise other than its usual valvetrain ticks so he decided to carefully motor on home, a distance quite comparable to that which you covered and not at all on the level. No harm befell the motor in the course of this freakish event. FWIW.

[Hornsey Boy]

Thanks for all reassurances everyone, kind of agree with @Barrykearley thinking. I might do an oil filter change today too as I have a spare K+N 2004 lying around from the S4. I assume this filter is OK for the 907 engine too

[gvy]

I had the exact same incident , years ago, after rebuilding the head of my S2.2 engine ( 912) . Apart from a lot of cleaning and swearing ( that engine and engine bay was just immaculately clean before installing), all was fine afterwards.

[Sparky]

@Hornsey Boy Dragan, really sorry I missed your call, but it's been a mad weekend.  A dry dipstick doesn't mean empty;  you likely still had a fair bit of oil in there.  I'm sure you haven't done any significant damage!