Can too much Oil kill Head Gasket?

[Jehu]

I need to know if a garage who over filled my 540 with at least 9 ltrs of oil ,maybe more if they never removed the oil filter housing cover when draining oil may be legally liable for damages so I may seek recovery of the expenses of repairing ... got low coolant and billowing white smoke as the engine warms up the day after I had my car oil changed... I supplied two 5 litre bottles of LubraMoly 5w40 and they added nine litres.. I had them drain out some but they still left me with too much.. The shop was closing as it was in the evening so i drove off but can too much oil create conditions that can damage the head gasket? More importantly if yes ,how does this occur.. I may need to bring some explanation of the engine design and physics to support a claim for reimbursement.

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

Too much oil will foam as it whipped up by the crank. It will also puts stress on the seals and create crankcase pressure that will cause leaks.

OIl foam will get drawn up into the intake via the vent and foul up everything as well.

Just run on down to another shop and get it done right.

[Jehu]

What caused my coolant loss.? I was low about a quart of coolant. I ssumed the billowing white smoke coming from the tail pipe was coolant entering the combustion chamber... no chocolate milk on the dipstick yet or oil in the expansion tank but still.. I have towed the car to a shop and they'll check it out monday... just wondering how responsible ovevr filling with oil may be correctly attributable so if it is the cause of damage I can build a case for small claims court to try and recover any expenses...

[bubba966]

Bob mentioned pretty much what happens when you've got too much oil in the block. It usually takes over 25% too much oil in the sump for the oil to get foamy like Bob mentioned.

As the M60B40 takes 8 quarts a 25% overfill would be 10 quarts or 9.46 liters.

But BMW engines are built to tighter tolerances so I don't know if the general 25% overfill rule would still apply to an M60.

If you did get your oil foamed up due to an overfill it could possibly lead to an overheating condition if the oil got foamed up so bad that it no longer properly lubricated the engine. You'd need to run it pretty hard like that to overheat it.

Don't think the overfill is related to the coolant/smoke issue. Not saying it's not possible for them to be related. Hope the shop (different shop?) finds that your headgasket is fine.

[Jehu]

So I definitely didn't get an engine temp warning and the gage stayed at TDC at all times.. I drove the car fairly hard on about a 200 miles highway drive ,some 80 mph uphill runs in the Berkshire Mountains on I90 but there was nothing out of the ordinary by way of any odd smells , misfiring or excessive smoke I noticed.. Just the low coolant the following day and the billowing white smoke after warm up.. There's no smoke at start up. I was told to see if I could smell coolant in the exhaust, that it would be fairly obvious and I can't say I smelled any but I may have just been reluctant to take a whiff of exhaust or been psycologically predisposed to self deception as a defense mechanism..lol. Maybe I have a loose Radiator Hose clamp and some of that uphill gunning forced a bit of coolant to spray out and the smoke is the frothy oil burning and I have jumped to a more serious conclusion than I may find is true... it'd be nice .. thanks for the help.

[632 Regal]

I would safely assume that extra oil wont kill a head gasket. 9 liters of oil is 9.5 quarts and if they drained some I don't see any problems at all. The smoke as it warmed could have been caused from the oil whipping up against the crank and really soaking the upstairs and then leaking past the valve seals over night. I don't see any correlation between the oil and water issue, different animals completely.

[Ferret]

As with the other guys here, I doubt it's the head gasket...

If the oil's foamed from when they initially kicked it over after the change, there would have been shitloads of it in the breathers - you wont be able to inspect as it's all in the intake manifold and we know how much of a swine it is to get out.

I dont think I've ever heard of a 4.0 v8 M60 with headgasket failure - obviously it happens, but the engine isnt prone to it.

If there was a major coolant leak it'd run like an absoloute dog for the first few seconds after startup as there'd be water in there for the first couple of cycles.

Confirm by pulling your plugs and looking for steam cleaning.

Also: you sure the oil was the correct type/same type as in before the change - and this isnt an artefact of a cold morning bringing the dreaded winter steaming exhausts out? (I'd forgotten about the steam until we had a cold snap the other day, the 8 caused the car behind to disappear in a fog bank in traffic!)

[Jehu]

I had Royal Purple 15w40 in there and added LubraMoly 5w40.. I didn't watch the oil change so perhaps the kid didn't open the oil filter housing when draining the oil? If he didn't replace the filter till after he drained and added oil and then at that added two literes too mnay there could still have been oil in the engine and there could have been ever more than the nine liters he added.. then if he did drain some out and still didn't open the oil filter housing there'd still be too much oil if all he drained was an estimated two liters.. and maybe a mix of 15w40 and 5w40 at that.. I suppose like I said the coolant loss could just have been a loose hose clamp.. The water pump and t stat are just six months old.. as is the radiator and upper rad hose. I did notice a smidge of antifreeze residue around the upper rad hose neck but couldn't be sure it wasn't there before and maybe I over looked it .. I've sure had that hose pop off the neck before several times and though the hose and radiator are six months old possibly the clamp was loose enough to allow some loss and i connected it with the smoke.. like I said its over at a reliable BMW trained Independant shop.. it'll get looked at tomorrow.. its be nice if all I had to do was clean the intake manifold ,drain some more oil and tighten a hose clamp...

It was in the 50's at the time so sure some of the discharge from the tail pipe is containing some steam but here's another thing I just recalled.. water dripping from the tail pipe.. more than I recall noticing ever in the past..again maybe the shock of the moment affected my focus and I just couldn't recall that water always drips from the tail pipe a little i just couldn't remember seeing it before.. water from the tailpipe not a concern? How's it getting into the exhaust?

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

water from the tailpipe not a concern? How's it getting into the exhaust?

Condensation

[Ross]

you have no claim, give it up.
This question was already answered on another forum.