Any gear heads out there?

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

On my way to the Orioles game today in my seldom used 1969 2800cs coupe. Accelerating to ~ 20-30 over the speed limit and the oil light comes on and I see a puff of smoke in the rear-view, manage to get across four lanes of traffic to the slow speed shoulder and shut it down. Look under the hood and the oil filter has blown off! Found it down on the suspension, appears to screw back on, add 4 quarts of oil, start the car (yea!) and it blows right off again. Tow it home. Don't think I've done any damage, have I?

[billymach4 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close billymach4]

Probably no damage done. How long was the engine running and without oil? Sounds like less than 2 minutes? Maybe even less that 1 minute.

The bigger question is why did the filter blow off? I thought all filters had a release valve built in to blow out the oil in case of high pressure?

You might have some sort of blockage that is preventing the filtered oil to return back into the engine. This might be your problem and the prior damage?

As for the rest of the engine I would say you caught in the nick of time. I once had a tech at a Ford Dealer forget to refill the oil after an oil change. He must have driven in this condition out of the garage to the dealer lot. Then I drove for another 2 blocks when I cut the engine and got sideswiped by an oncoming car. This happened in 2005. The car had about 40k miles. Still driving today at 62k miles. I was afraid of engine damage as well. I was lucky.

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

Oh, it was less than a minute. I'm thinking that the shop put the wrong filter on last time and it hung on until I had this big acceleration. I'll find out tomorrow.

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

I hope that you have no damage to your engine. It happened to us too like with billymach4 that the Ford Service Department forgot to put the oil back in our engine and the car heated up on our way home. All in all we drove about four miles without damage because our old 66 Mustang drove many more miles after that so you should be OK.
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[RESORT2ME Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RESORT2ME]

Even without filter, oil from the pan should have kept things lubricated for the time it was still running.

You could supposedly run it for a mile or more before the coat of lubrication was heated away.

You should be fine.

[billymach4 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close billymach4]

I hope that you have no damage to your engine. It happened to us too like with billymach4 that the Ford Service Department forgot to put the oil back in our engine and the car heated up on our way home. All in all we drove about four miles without damage because our old 66 Mustang drove many more miles after that so you should be OK.
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Did Ford neglect to instruct their mechanics about refilling engines with oil after draining out old oil?

When I reported this to the State DMV the guy was flabergasted. He could see this happening at a Jiffy Lube or a quick oil change place, but not a Ford Dealer!

I ended up getting 1 year and 12k warranty on all internally lubricated engine parts. I got more damage from the sideswipe accident.