OIL MESSES....How dirty have you been?

[mytmousemalibu]

As ive read the pages of our forum, alot of us have admited to some rather embaressing oil spills from our beloved rides! I have made plenty in my life, Im an auto technician, its part of my life. But so far, the SD and I have avoided the hazmat oil spills so far, but I feel compeled to share with you, my own Exxon Valdez moment

I wish i had pictures of proof and its not an M-B but i think i got ya'll beat on vehicular oil messes with the 2500HD! I had an injector let go a while back and since there under the valve covers on the LB7 model code engines, it proceded to add about 2 gallons diesel (repeatedly) into my crankcase! Well goin down the highway i had no idea somthin was wrong till i slowed down and it stalled from low fuel pressure, and then i caught a wiff of diesel.....Hmm WTF is goin on here??? And i swereved into an empty parking lot (at nighttime) and looked down the street in town where i saw a trail of shineyness as far as i could see....All the way to my truck I looked at her and see a river of nasty diesel diluted oil running out from it! Course at freeway speeds and a superfull crankcase, it was belching this cocktail of fuel/oil out everywhere! The ENTIRE underside of the truck was soaked, as well as, rocker panels, fenders, wheels, tires, tailgate, bed, 75% of the truck was coated What a giant @ss mess! Im pretty sure the pressure washer is nearly dead now after that clean-up!

That takes the cake for me, but my truck should NEVER rust

[LUVMBDiesels]

Oh man that is a classic!

I seem to cover myself with automotive fluids on a regular basis... Last time was taking the transmission pan off the Suburban. I slipped and dumped the nearly full pan on me!

I have also covered myself in oil, anti-freeze, etc.

I have learned to put a blue tarp under any car I work on

I as well have been bathed in tranny fluid my first real car a 1977 LTD I was changing the trans fluid and filter and no one told me how full it would be. Splash all over me. Another incident involved a 1989 190E secondary fuel pump went out. I "thought" I had gotten all the gas out of the tank. Disconnected the line from the tank to the first fuel filter and splash. And let me tell you what that stuff burns after a few minutes!!!! I had to take like 3 showers.

[Mike D]

Hah! Y'all aint lived until you do an oil change on an in-line Cummins 6 cylinder (not a wimpy old 6BT 5.9L but a REAL engine) with a canister filter and don't get the "O" ring seated properly! If you do an oil change do NOT crank the engine over with a remote starter button! There's something about an engine which develops 90 psi oil pressure at idle which can ruin your whole day! And of course, since you were stoopid enough to be lying underneath the truck you can't just hit the "kill" switch!

[cmbdiesel]

I'm right in there with LUVMB, dropping the trans pan on my old K5 Blazer. Amazing how much weight transfer there is when fluid moves from side to side. Went from totally in control to totally in the oil in about 1 second. Of course it hit me right under my chin and ran down inside my coveralls, so I didn't leave much of a stain on the garage floor.

[raymr]

Just a routine oil change, only this time I forgot to remove the plug in the drain pan....

[sunedog]

Funny you should bring this up. Just two days ago I used my Mityvac to suck a gallon of synthetic oil out of a leaking oil tank in a Sea-doo. That stuff goes for about $40 a gallon so I wanted to save it.

For the first time, I used the Mityvac in the pump mode. I attempted to pump the oil from the Mityvac into a clean gallon jug.

While it was pumping, I brought my work laptop into the shop to Google replacement oil tanks. (I should know better.) All of a sudden, the little plastic tube from the Mityvac separated from the larger tube and started spewing synthetic oil all over me, my shop cabinets and the laptop! I leaped into action to reconnect the tubes and got oil everywhere.

What a friggin' mess!

Luckily, the laptop was only hit by about a dozen small droplets on the screen and keyboard.

[Nate]

Ft passengers side outer CV joint broke on my 90 geo tracker in 4wd at about 50mph... Good times, big mess, the end of that POS... Best I can figure as to what happened is as follows...

Said CV shaft wedged itself between the control arm, and the sway bar. This had enough force to grenade the ft differential. When the ft differential exploded, it locked up tight enough to break the bolts holding the ft drive shaft to the differential. This drive shaft was still under power from the transfer case, and MAN did it have some fun. It seriously rearranged the trans tunnel, it was cut in many places, and the floor had some wicked dents in it. When this drive shaft was flailing around, it broke the bellhousing on the transmission, there goes 3 quarts of gear lube. It also smashed the oil pan, and there goes 2quarts of 20w50 (it had an oil burning problem... I "fixed" it with a thicker oil)

I drive the hulk to my home (2 blocks), and shut it off in the driveway... The other two quarts of oil came out... It was black and nasty, and all over the concrete driveway. I did my best to clean it up (scrubbed with dawn/concrete cleaner/portland cement), but still a nasty stain remained...


This was last winter... There's still an oil slick whenever it rains, and the concrete is discolored...


~Nate

[LUVMBDiesels]

^^^ It knew it was dying and left it's mark behind for you to remember it by.

Speaking of gas, this did not leave a stain, but boy it was fun!. I was siphoning out the old gas from my snow blower one October after having forgotten to run it dry in April. I could not find my thin hose so I took a four foot piece of garden hose stuck one end in the tank the other in my mouth and gave a suck. I swallowed what felt like a quart of the old nasty gas (beer bong anyone?) before getting the hose out of my mouth. When I woke up I called the doctor and he said that unless I passed out again I would be OK just not to go near open flame! I burped up gas for weeks!

[cmbdiesel]

Originally Posted by LUVMBDiesels

^^^ It knew it was dying and left it's mark behind for you to remember it by.

Speaking of gas, this did not leave a stain, but boy it was fun!. I was siphoning out the old gas from my snow blower one October after having forgotten to run it dry in April. I could not find my thin hose so I took a four foot piece of garden hose stuck one end in the tank the other in my mouth and gave a suck. I swallowed what felt like a quart of the old nasty gas (beer bong anyone?) before getting the hose out of my mouth. When I woke up I called the doctor and he said that unless I passed out again I would be OK just not to go near open flame! I burped up gas for weeks!

you need a "no pipetting by mouth" sign, typically seen in HS chem labs

Originally Posted by LUVMBDiesels

Speaking of gas, this did not leave a stain, but boy it was fun!. I was siphoning out the old gas from my snow blower one October after having forgotten to run it dry in April. I could not find my thin hose so I took a four foot piece of garden hose stuck one end in the tank the other in my mouth and gave a suck. I swallowed what felt like a quart of the old nasty gas (beer bong anyone?) before getting the hose out of my mouth. When I woke up I called the doctor and he said that unless I passed out again I would be OK just not to go near open flame! I burped up gas for weeks!

Oh man, I have done the exact same thing - trying to start a siphon of gas out of an old lawn tractor, could not find a narrow tube so like a fool I used a garden hose. Take a good pull on a garden hose to start a siphon of gasoline. That's a mistake you will only make once! I swallowed a good mouthful of gasoline and was burping the fumes for probably a month. Good thing I am not a smoker!

Changing oil in my 400E last weekend - I have one of those closed / bottle-type drain pans. The motor was nice and hot to get the oil flowing out quickly. When I unscrewed the drain plug that SOB was HOT and I dropped it right into the pan. Wouldn't you know it is the perfect size to fit in the hole in the top of that drain pan like a stopper. Only choice I had was to shove my hand into steaming hot oil in the rapidly-filling top of the pan and fetch the drain plug. Ouch! But it beat having the driveway coated with 8+ quarts of used Mobil 1.

*CURSES* Might be time to pick up an oil extractor...

[SirNik84]

Its all part of owning a Benz

[SirNik84]

my worst spill was not in the Benz ether, although the constant oil leaks creates the NEVER rust option.

I was changing the oil in my dads F350. Its an 88 with a 7.3 + the banks turbo kit. anyway, changing the oil he tells me, "you have to let it drain for a while." so I help him with yard work for a few hours and then go back to the truck. I untwist the oil filter and get is all most all the way unthreaded them all of a sudden about a gallon of oil falls on my FACE. the truck is very similar to the Mercedes with the oil cooler lines coming out of the oil filter housing, only instead of the filter being in a tower and coming out the top, it unscrews from the bottom. so the oil cooler dumped on my face!

them my dad says "didn't I tell you, you gotta pop a hole in the filter, thats why I told you to let it drain for a long time" as i'm staning there with oil all over my head and face!

Thanks Dad!

[pawoSD]

I like that my car leaks a bit of fluids, it keeps the underside coated in oil and in MI, thats awesome, it really does prevent rust!

[sunedog]

My embarrassing post number 2 on this subject:

I have a Honda outboard motor on my boat. The crankcase holds 6 quarts. I knew that because I looked up in the manual how many quarts of oil I needed to buy.

I put my cheapo 5 quart capacity plastic oil drain pan under the outboard and pulled the plug. (You smart folks already know where this is going.....)

You can't, I repeat CAN'T, put 6 quarts of used oil in a 5 quart oil drain pan.

Big stain in the street in front of the house.