Oil / fuel problems after service

[budda666]

Hi, not been on here in a while (mainly because the van was starting to stress me out over the damp and miserable winter). Anyway, sunny days are back so with new found optimism I got the van serviced and MOT'd on Thursday - only issues to report were a slightly leaky injector and a couple body work advisories. The garage delivered the van home and when I stuck my nose in on Thursday night it stank of diesel - aired it out over night and put this down to the injector work.

Family in the van for first run out on Saturday - after about five miles the diesel smell (suddenly) reappeared but seemed to fade a bit after we stopped. Set off again but probably 10 or so miles later diesel smell again + my wife reported smoke in the back so we mildly panicked pulled over. Inspection of the engine bay showed the engine fairly oily and the haze my wife had seen looking to be oil burning off on the engine + oil dripping off the (previously cleaned) tray underneath.

The guy who 'collected' us was more recovery than repairman but he pointed out that the breather pipe was disconnected from the engine, that he thought the oil was likely coming from the point where the dipstick housing meets the engine and that he felt it might have been over filled. The neck of the flange the breather connects to is also very oily and there appears to be a pronounced oily patch on the body work beneath it (I do have a picture but it's a bit crap).

I'm obviously going back to the garage tomorrow to get them to have another look and get their side on things but would like to be armed with some info, so:

a) Would the disconnected breather pipe account for the strong fuel smell or is that a red herring?
b) I've dipped the stick a few times and the oil level is coming out at the lower end of the squiggle that's bent into it (i.e a fair few mm above the the two punched dots) - that's after it's spat an amount all over the engine and the A170. I suppose the question is how full is too full and what damage might this cause after 20 / 25 miles of driving + should I be expecting to see significant oil at the mouth of the breather connection?

I'm well aware that stuff goes wrong and no service is ever going to catch every imminent problem so would prefer to be slightly clued up before going off on one at the garage if it's not their fault!

Cheers and I hope some of you got some happy motoring in this weekend - at least we've found there are worse vehicles to be stranded in, especially if you've git a full picnic hamper with you!

[mark]

when the engine has been over filled with oil all of the above can happen. hopefully no damage will have occurred, get the garage to check for seal damage. you have been lucky, what with all the gradients you no doubt struggled up and flew down
over pressurisation and the chance of the engine feeding its self on the excess oil and revving its ass off until kaboom...... are a couple of things pulling over helped prevent

mark

[budda666]

Mark - cheers. Garage came out to have a look this afternoon - they don't think it's overfilled (said they put 4.5l back in) but reckoned it was actually a diesel leak caused degraded plugs (bungs? blanks? black, about an inch long with a hole down the middle) in the fuel lines into the engine (annoyingly I wasn't there this afternoon so this is chinese whispers back from my wife who talked to them).

I don't know, the liquid dripping out the back of the van on Saturday was thick, gloopy and black and looked like oil to me + the repair man reckoned he could see a leak and 'blow back' around the seal to the dip stick tube. This might explain the fuel smell but don't know if there's more than one thing going on here.

Either way (and assuming the description of the fuel line fault makes any sense) is this something that should really have been picked up on during the service?

[mark]

drop a drop of the oil on a bit of k I t c h e n r o l l, the diesel will spread quicker than the oil and separate from the oil. the test should let you know how proceed.

k I t c h e n r o l l is what the oil should be dropped on every time I post it changes to gobble de gook fecking bt fon

did they get 4.5ltrs out

mark

[budda666]

Well van returned from garage but due to busy weekend no chance to take it out for a test. Apparently the blanking nipple on the fuel line had split resulting in - quote - a fairly major fuel leak (takes moment to thank lucky stars things didn't end up a whole lot worse). Van was delivered home while I was out, but so far the garage haven't asked for any money for the extra work and recovery so I'm hoping it's a good will gesture for it coming back like that the first time round. They reckon the oil thing is the red herring and that the seal to the dip stick needed replacing which is why it could be seen to be leaking a bit.

Here's hoping that's it for the summer and we've just got months of driving and camping ahead...

[AdrianC]

Apparently the blanking nipple on the fuel line had split resulting in - quote - a fairly major fuel leak (takes moment to thank lucky stars things didn't end up a whole lot worse).

Diesel's surprisingly hard to ignite. Even petrol can be hard - we had the main fuel pipe on our WBX split, pouring the main supply from pump to injection rails over the hot block in 40+deg ambients. No fire...

[mark]

fingers crossed for a happy summer

mark

Well van returned from garage but due to busy weekend no chance to take it out for a test. Apparently the blanking nipple on the fuel line had split resulting in - quote - a fairly major fuel leak (takes moment to thank lucky stars things didn't end up a whole lot worse). Van was delivered home while I was out, but so far the garage haven't asked for any money for the extra work and recovery so I'm hoping it's a good will gesture for it coming back like that the first time round. They reckon the oil thing is the red herring and that the seal to the dip stick needed replacing which is why it could be seen to be leaking a bit.

Here's hoping that's it for the summer and we've just got months of driving and camping ahead...

[mark]

a brown trouser moment ?

mark

Diesel's surprisingly hard to ignite. Even petrol can be hard - we had the main fuel pipe on our WBX split, pouring the main supply from pump to injection rails over the hot block in 40+deg ambients. No fire...

[AdrianC]

a brown trouser moment ?

Diesel's surprisingly hard to ignite. Even petrol can be hard - we had the main fuel pipe on our WBX split, pouring the main supply from pump to injection rails over the hot block in 40+deg ambients. No fire...

You could say that... Slightly browner, I think, than when the main injection-pressure pipe on my old Cit XM started spraying petrol straight onto the hot side of the turbo...

[budda666]

Apparently the blanking nipple on the fuel line had split resulting in - quote - a fairly major fuel leak (takes moment to thank lucky stars things didn't end up a whole lot worse).

Diesel's surprisingly hard to ignite. Even petrol can be hard.

As much as that sounds like a challenge I'm done with messing around with fuel for the moment thanks.