Oil Change disaster... Currently Confused and Embarrassed

[msalvoni]

I am so confused and Embarrassed about what happened today. I Decided to change my oil today. I purchased castrol edge extended performance full synthetic 5w-20, and I purchased a fram XG10575 oil filter. I have not had any warning lights come on, just the change oil soon light. I drained the old oil and it turned out to be about 6 quarts (at the time I hadn't measured how much came out so I didnt realize it was low untill investigating later). I realize this may have been one HORRIBLE mistake that I made but I only had the front of the car jacked up so obviously the car was not level. But it seemed like it would make sense as it was leaning in the direction where the most oil would come out of the oil pan. I proceeded to put on the oil filter and then tighten back up the drain plug no issues. I filled the engine with 8 quarts and finshed up the job thinking everything was great. I checked the dip stick and saw that oil was up to the maximum and as stupid as it may have been didnt really look or take into consideration if or how far above the full marker it was. I just assumed 8 quarts in has to be good. Anyways I started driving the car and after about 3 miles I noticed smoke in the rear. (heart dropped, and honestly this is hard for me to even talk about) i had to drive it about 3 more miles to get home so a total of 7-8 miles is how far I drove the car. When I got home it all hit me as I stepped out of my car, oil was spewing from underneath the car and was all over the underside of my car and on my license plate and tai lights. I have not started the car since and I will be investigating everything tomorrow so feel free to say a prayer... I am praying something just went bad with the oil filter... no check engine lights came on or oil lights and i saw it had oil pressure the whole time untill it was turned off. Tomorrow I will see how much was left in the car ( I must have lost several quarts). When I got back to my place where I work on the car I noticed it was leaking starting right where I turned the car on to warm up and check oil via dip stick. I never thought to look back down there after the change... neighbors kids were running circles around me distracting me the whole time but still no excuse for not peeking down there. Anyways I am just hoping I didn't damage the engine and it has something to do with the oil filter (thats where I believe it was spewing from). I saw somhere that you need to make sure the gasket is not left on there from the previous oil filter but I checked the old one and it was still on there so i dont think thats it. I defintely tightetened the oil filter enough so... A thought just popped into my head I mean I may have used the wrong tool to tighten it and punctured the filter... I use a metal pipe wrench with a chain maybe i punctured it without noticing ( but I tried not to overtighten...) I will know more tomorrow.

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[Juantrickpony]

Dang that sucks. Best of luck. You really should only hand-tighten the oil filter. Over tightening can crush/ruin the gasket. Keep us posted.

 

[Kermitz]

Dang that sucks. Best of luck. You really should only hand-tighten the oil filter. Over tightening can crush/ruin the gasket. Keep us posted.

This ^

 

[msalvoni]

Dang that sucks. Best of luck. You really should only hand-tighten the oil filter. Over tightening can crush/ruin the gasket. Keep us posted.

For the rest of my days I will tighten oil filters by hand, Now that I have thought about it over and over at this point I am thinking I accidentally punctured it when trying to tighten it will a pipe wrench... I have used it before to loosen oil filters and even tighten them on (not aggressively just a bit more snug than a hand tighten, but I will never do again...) I am really thinking I must have damaged it with the pipe wrench...

 

[ice445]

The old gasket was probably stuck on there. Double gasketing guarantees a big mess. If you never saw the oil light you'll be fine, just relax and clean up the mess. A lot of the capacity is for sustained lateral G's anyway, so as long as you didn't go to the race track and do some laps you'll be ok.

 

[ORRadtech]

As long as you didn't get an oil warning light your engine is likely just fine.
You can probably get away with just changing the filter again. I'd do that because you used a chain wrench on it. Never put a filter on with something that could crush the canister.
I always hand tighten the filter then turn it 1/8th turn simply because it's not always easy to get a good enough grip to fully hand tighten. That and my grip strength isn't what it once was. I use one of the cups that slip over the end of the filter. Again, don't use anything that might crush the canister.

FWIW, I once had a freak incident where the front tire shot a stone into the side of the oil filter and punctured it. I got the oil light and smoke and oil everywhere! It was quite a scare. Luckily I still had enough oil to get to safety. Changed that filter in a parking lot and added 3 qts of oil. That truck ran well for another 50k miles before something else killed it.

 

[Cobra Jet]

Always tighten the filter by hand, once it’s snug you can tighten another full or 3/4 turn if you have the hand strength to do so. Some people don’t have good hand strength and so would need a filter wrench to tighten the further.

Don’t ever use a chain filter to tighten - use one of the filter wrench “sockets” that fit the exact shape of your oil filter.

Definitely make sure you did not cross-thread the filter too. If you did, it’s possible the filter is skewed and did not sit flush against the block.

——
The last thing you want is an oil fire if parts of the engine and exhaust are saturated.

To get all the oil off the underside of the car, go through your local car wash 1 or 2 times and have them select the “underside or chassis” cleanse.

When you get home, go over the top side of the car with Dawn Dish Soap - it will remove any and all excess oil that may be left. This is the Dawn product you want to use:
https://dawn-dish.com/en-us/products/dawn-powerwash-dish-spray

You can also use Dawn under the car as well; saturate the underside, let it sit and use a long handled brush to scrub as much as you can reach or get to - then just rinse.

For the engine bay you can do the same by using Dawn OR diluted Simple Green. Both will be safe - soak and let sit, then rinse and run engine with hood closed.

After using Dawn on topside of car, give it a regular wash, then wax-polish immediately afterwards. Dawn will not harm plastics or surfaces.

 

[Sean709]

I use the oil filter socket type cups that take a 3/8 drive ratchet for everything. They sell kits on Amazon for all the different filter sizes.

 

[Biggus Dickus]

Dang that sucks. Best of luck. You really should only hand-tighten the oil filter. Over tightening can crush/ruin the gasket. Keep us posted.

Devil's advocate here - I had a "hand tightened" filter come loose and start to drip. The Coyote tends to vibrate a bit and my theory is was it wasn't tightened quite enough, and the vibrations of the motor loosened it up. "hand tightened" probably should mean "hand tightened" like Popeye would.

 

[50thLE]

I actually had a Ford Racing oil filter leak around it's gasket after being put on and it was tight. Put a Motorcraft oil filter on and no issues.

 

[Strokerswild]

"hand tightened" probably should mean "hand tightened" like Popeye would.

This.

I've seen a couple of factory installed filters that were so loose that they seeped a bit, and took very little effort to loosen.

When I do a change, I always tighten the filter as tight as I can get it with dry, bare hands. Never an issue.

 

[XS]

Not to freak you out, but I'm wondering if overfilling it 2 quarts blew a gasket out somewhere. Overfilling can cause a lot of damage, including oil starvation if the oil gets whipped up into basically a meringue - it can't flow then. I wouldn't worry too much about that though since you only drove it 3 miles. I'm more concerned the excess oil blew a seal or gasket out somewhere. Ideally this is just an oil filter issue.

 

[ORRadtech]

Not to freak you out, but I'm wondering if overfilling it 2 quarts blew a gasket out somewhere. Overfilling can cause a lot of damage, including oil starvation if the oil gets whipped up into basically a meringue - it can't flow then. I wouldn't worry too much about that though since you only drove it 3 miles. I'm more concerned the excess oil blew a seal or gasket out somewhere. Ideally this is just an oil filter issue.

If he has a GT older than '18 then 8 qts is what's required with a filter change. '18 up use 10 qts. It's only the EcoBoost that takes 6 (5.7 to be exact) quarts.

 

[Zooks527]

I've seen a couple of factory installed filters that were so loose that they seeped a bit, and took very little effort to loosen.

Mine! Mine!

 

[Zooks527]

If he has a GT older than '18 then 8 qts is what's required with a filter change. '18 up use 10 qts. It's only the EcoBoost that takes 6 (5.7 to be exact) quarts.

However, he said the car was far off level when he drained it, he realized later that only took 6 quarts out, and he put 8 quarts in without checking the dipstick. If he left 2 quarts in the pan because of the tilt (seems a lot), he would have been at 10 quarts total in an 8 quart sump. In that case, foaming is quite possible, which could blow a gasket or push oil past the rings into the cylinders (leading to smoking).

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