Help please... Mass oil filter killings :(

[BoostedOne]

Ok, short version..

HISTORY
Got my caddy on the road in October using a used 1.6L ME code engine of pretty much unknown history.  I got it from a guy who was going to use it in Samurai project that never took off.. It sat for several years...
Had a leaky injector pump, oil light comes on when warm idling, and a good amount of blow by...  I'm just using for a few months until I can rebuild my other engine.

JUST PRIOR TO PROBLEM:
End of November, I was driving it and it overheated.  Thought maybe the fan switch went out.  Real long story short, even though it ran(just built moderate pressure in the cooling system), I decided to do a quick job to get the headgasket repaired..


So, I cleaned up the deck of the head and block.  Didnt want to get the head surfaced because i didnt want to put a bunch of money into this head since the bottom end is so worn..  But while it was apart I decided to knock the pistons out from the bottom and re-ring it.  Slapped in some new standard size grant rings and KS rod bearings, figuring maybe I could cut down on the blow by and low oil pressure for a few bucks and a few extra hours work. 

Not sure that it matters for this discussion but reused the headbolts even though its a no-no..

PROBLEM:
Got the truck back together on a Saturday afternoon..  No pressure in the coolant, figured things were a success.  We drove the truck almost 200 miles Saturday night, not a single issue.
Sunday, wouldnt start.. I left the lights on when we got home Saturday night..
Monday morning, go to drive the truck to work.  Temperature was about 60 degrees. Finally get the truck to fire off, and shortly after(I didnt even move yet), the oil light comes on.  Open the hood, find oil blown all over the drivers side fender well.  The filter blew out at the seam between the flange and the canister.

I figured this was just because it was an "american" filter from napa, and maybe they just sold the V8 application as a VW filter..  So I drive my other car across town to get a couple of MANN filters.  One for now, one for "later" I figured..
I put the new filter on, fresh oil, clean it up.  I'm happy, think I got it licked.  Drive it to work the next day, everything is fine.  After work, as I am walking to the truck I run into a friend in the parking lot.  After I get into the truck to leave, he's still walking so I think to be funny I will floor it when I go by and black smoke him...

Well, I make it about 200 feet and the oil light comes on..  Imagine my embarrassment when I had to have him ride me to the parts store for a new filter..  But I found the local Advance carries Mann filters, yay!

So replaced the filter in the parking lot at work, more fresh oil.  Babied the ever loving crap out of it to get it home, figuring the high RPM when cold spikes the pressure and burst the filter.

Two days later I blew that filter too, again, right after startup...

A friend of mine whose into V8s keep saying pressure releif.. Which, while i admit I never really looked at the VW pump that close, I didnt remember seeing one, and the Bentley doesn't mention them, and i remember from my younger days with 8v gassers breaking mechanical oil pressure gauges due to the super high pressure these things run when they are cold, so they didnt have one..  I went and looked at a pump out of my core motor, sure enough, they do..

So I limp the truck into the shop the following Friday after noon.  Jack it up, pull the pan, pull the pump.. Disassemble pump.  Nothing seems out of the ordinary internally, but I hit the oil releif passage in the cover plate of the pump with an air line, its locked up solid.  I ground the peens from the spring cap and removed the cap and spring, and the releif still won't move..
So for some reason which still leaves me at a loss, is somehow the releif valve in the pump locked up..

So I have 3 other pumps.  One is out of a low mile ABA, but I can't use that because the drive shaft is shorter.  Another out of an old 11mm engine, and one out of a hydro ME code motor. I checked all of the releif valves, and they all blew open under pressure from the air compressor.

So I decided to install the pump out of the ME hydro motor since it had the bigger gears, and the mk2 Bentley even says you can put a hydro motor pump in to attempt to cure a low oil pressure problem on the early motor(my oil light still comes on with the new bearings when it warms up).  I also added the oil baffle from the ABA motor.

Get the truck back together.  New Mann filter.  Fresh oil.  I drove the truck 150 miles that Friday night.  No problems.  Ran errands in it Saturday to the tune of probably 100 miles.  No problem.  Saturday evening or Sunday morning, go to start it up, blew the filter off again!

I haven't had a chance to pull it apart yet to see if the releif is stuck all of a sudden on this pump too, but anyone have any ideas?

The headgasket is on with OBEN up.
Its a Victor Reinz headgasket.
Oil is 15-40 diesel oil.
Lowest the temps have gotten so far is low 50s.

My friend did alot of searching, and i did some.. Seems like alot of people post the problem but rarely share what the solution ended up being.

[theman53]

Is the head gasket for a hydro engine or mechanical? Basically sounds like there is a blockage somewhere, whether the HG or in an oil passage.

[BoostedOne]

Hg is for hydro motor.
Im not sure how much oil it can have because when I retorqued the head after the first heat cycle it was wet up there.

[cyrus #1]

I agree with theman.  It definitely sounds like the oil is being restricted somewhere.  Can you get a mechanical pressure gauge and do some tests with it?  If you see extremely high pressure at the oil filter flange and lousy pressure at the head it may at least point you in the right direction.

[justiz00]

On my ME engine it is not uncommon to see 80-100 at the head cold, pressure will fluctuate between 80-100 until warm (slowly drops to 80 then back into the 90's and drops back to 80 and repeat). Burst pressure on most filters has to be 200+ psi I would imagine. Running 15w40.

[theman53]

You already eliminated the oil pump bypass being wrong by changing the pump. So that is why I was thinking the HG, if you are sure it is hydro then I would do as cyrus says and put a mech gauge in the head for testing purposes. It will either show you nothing at the head or something crazy like 150psi at the head. Either way something to go on at that point.

[BoostedOne]

I meant to say the head gasket was for a mechanical head.  My mistake.

 Since it is the last day before the holiday I am headed to the parts house to get another oil pump head gasket and head bolts.

I was thinking the same thing regarding the pressures.   I will see if I have a couple of 200 pound gauges and I will tap 1 into the flange and the other into the head. If I find the pressure at the head is low how would I go about clearing the block? 

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[Dakotakid]

How clean was the oil pan and internal aspects of this engine each time you had it open? Did you see any metal chips in the bottom of the pan or on the oil pump screen? Did this engine sit exposed (opened up) on a work bench or in someone's back yard prior to you putting it into service?

The problem with this guy's story is that he takes the rig out and runs it (for up to (supposedly) 200 miles) and all is fine (giving it enough time to stir up the crap in this engine). Then, he shuts it off and problems emerge upon restart.

Is there a chance (he said unknown origin) that this engine was fun for long periods of time on gasoline engine oil?

My two cents worth.

[BoostedOne]

Also do these things not have any line up features in the deck for the head gasket? I think the 8 valve has 2 little pins sticking out of the block. On this engine I had nothing and it seemed like the head gasket was allowed to shift around a little until I got the head bolts in.

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[BoostedOne]

Before I got it the engine was stored assembled however nothing was plugged or covered. So the only thing protecting the intake was the filter and so forth. When I first got it running there was actually so much crankcase pressure it was leaking out of the main seals.  I found a mud dauber plug the crankcase vent in the intake manifold. The engine was stored indoors however it was an open air shop in South Florida. Mud daubers will plug up an exposed hole in a matter of days.  In the summertime if I don't use my air tools once a month the inlet port will be plugged up with my daughters.

I am kind of baffled by the whole thing myself. I would have figured if Grit was causing the relief to lock up  it would probably seize in the open position.  Since the oil pump that was in it when I first got it running work for over 3000 miles for me since October and then mysteriously the relief blocked up I would not be amazed to find the pump i put in a week ago locked the releif too.

I honestly did not look at the bottom of the pan very closely when I had it apart. The inside of the engine was remarkably clean. I guess because of the diesel oil there was a black layer of soot that just wiped off.  I really did not inspect things very closely other than that because I just figured it was an off the wall part failure.

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[BoostedOne]

And yes before the head gasket other than the excessive blow by and the low oil pressure the engine ran fine and I drove the hell out of it. Between October 13th and November 26th I put over 3000 miles on the truck. It was getting about 45 miles per gallon but that is probably kind of low because it is on 195 45 14 tires so it screams on the interstate.   

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[R.O.R-2.0]

FWIW, my old 1.5 had lousy oil pressure, yet still pegged my autometer oil pressure gauge..

my filters are ALWAYS ballooned out on the bottom..

i dont run my diesel hard when its cold.. i know it will blow the filter apart.

[theman53]

IIRC all ME code engines are hydraulic. If you put a mechanical head gasket on it I would start there.

[BoostedOne]

I dunno.  I think all golf 2s were me code, and hydro started in 86? I know its a mechanical head and 12mm though. 

I understand you don't want to beat the snot out of it when it is cold but on the other hand it would be nice to be able to rev over 2000 rpm without waiting 15 minutes. 

I will be out in the shop beginning the investigation in a few hours.  Keep y'all posted

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[BoostedOne]

UPDATE.
So i just finished plumbing a 200 psi gauge to the head and a 300 psi gauge to the block.  New mann filter and fresh fill of 15-40w diesel oil.  Outside temp is about 45 to 50 degrees F.

Fired her up and never went above idle.  As it ran i noticed the gauge for the flange around 250 psi, but it would oscillate a little up and down 10 psi.  At first glance at my gauge for the head i thought it was reading 0, indicating total blockage, however a closer look revealed it was wrapped around to the peg(well over 200 psi obviously)....

Not 10 seconds later saw the pressure flutter and drop off like a rock.  Blown filter in about 30 seconds idling....

My gauge setup consisted of braided line running to industrial liquid filled gauges placed side by side so i could see them both at the same time...


Since the pressure was well in excess pf gauge limits at the head, i don't know the pressure but it definitely has pressure. .

Thoughts?


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