This all started last week. It was relatively cold at the time, upper-30s, but the weather was nice so I decide to take a drive. I've had it out in as cold and colder temperatures before. It is running nicely, everything gets warmed up, no drama. I park the car for awhile. I get back, start it up, everything seems normal. I begin to drive away and about 30 seconds later the green light blinks a couple times, then comes on and stays on. I immediately pull into a parking lot and shut it down. Oil is dripping from everywhere, and I can see a trail from the street. Call AAA, get towed. Remove the oil filter and it has "bulged" in the top. It is a K&N oil filter, and I had Castrol 20W50 at the time. I thought that this was strange though, since the car had been running fine when I left home earlier, and I previously have been out at the track when the air temp was in the upper 20s and the engine never did this before. But I suspect maybe the 20w50 is too heavy for the cold, so I have another K&N filter, but this time put in 5w30. Same thing happens to the second, brand new filter (my garage is heated). I last changed oil at the end of august and have done one track weekend plus many days of fun-driving without any troubles at all.

I search around on this forum and find some information about 6cyl cars blowing their oil filters but seemingly nothing about 4cyl cars. I read up on the oil pressure relief spring, but that seems to be upstream of the oil filter on 4cyl cars. There was a post that mentions blowing compressed air through the oil cooler? Can one remove the oil cooler without dropping the engine first? I'm confused as to what might be the problem with my engine ( 2.0L 4cyl)

What should I be looking for or checking at this point?

Thanks!

UPDATE - 27 Nov 2006 - scroll down for pictures

Check compression. I think you have big-time ring leak preasurizing the case. Does the exhaust note sound ,uh, complete?

Could have been a galley plug popping out. You need to check your engine very carefully.

Thanks for the replies

SGB - the short time I was driving before the oil light illuminated, the exhaust note didn't sound wrong. Could a piston ring have broken?

McMark - my case has threaded galley plugs, and both oil filters are obviously deformed around the top seal. Though I have not had much chance to inspect everything so I will check this out. But, it seems that oil is getting into the filter but not back into the case.

I'll try to post a picture of the oil filter soon.

Any other ideas? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Did one of the galley plugs go too deep and restrict the oil flow out of the filter.

Would these move? The galley plugs were tapped back in 2004 when the motor was rebuilt. It has been leak-free ever since, and I've driven it approx. 4-5k miles since then

I'll have time this weekend to have a good look at everything.

Thanks again for your help!

Sorry I didn't see this sooner....

The galley plugs shouldn't move, but they can be installed too deep from the beginning. If any galley plugs are installed deeper than the surrounding case, you might have a restriction problem. What weight of oil are you using?

UPDATE = pictures
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I have another filter that looks exactly like this. The second one is brand new and it popped in the same manner after only a few seconds of the engine running.

I'm using Castrol GTX 20w50. The car was running fine until the initial incident. And as mentioned earlier, I've been out to the track on much colder days and never had any problems before.

Does anyone have any more ideas as to why this is happening?

Thanks!

the Haynes manual depicts the oil filter as having a bypass valve in addition to 2 others on the engine. Perhaps you should try a different brand of filter in case the ones you have dont have a working valve.

Hi

Sorry to hear about the bad luck...

I would definitely go strait to the oil preasure pluger and spring. It does look like you had a "sudden" burst of oil preasure. make sure the plunger is moving and not jamed in its bore.
Gotta check your oil cooler seals, to see if thier blown as well.

Put on a new filter and hook up a manual presure guage to confirm the actual PSI.

Later

I had a 1.7 years ago, that was blowing oil out of the top of the motor, due to
the case being pressurized by a valve that was about to drop. Could not figure
out what was happening, and then the #3 exhaust value was not keeping an
adjustment. Good luck.

Sounds viable all right...