Lost oil pressure

[qrpp]

I have a Volvo MD11c which was rebuilt professionally a few years ago. I re-installed the engine last year. It does not have that many hours on it since the rebuild. Yesterday, I set off on a weekend sail. I always check the oil level before starting the motor. Everything was fine. After starting it, oil pressure was fine. To get out to the Chesapeake Bay from my marina, I have to motor at least 45 minutes. I try and look at the gauges every five minutes. The next thing I know, I have no oil pressure. At that point I did not have time to check anything, but had to concentrate on getting my jib up and get back to the dock. Once there I checked the engine and noticed it had lost all its oil. Anybody have thoughts on why this happened? Is this going to be a costly repair?
thanks---Neil T.

 

[Col]

Where did it lose its oil from? Was it knocking when you stopped it? If you didn't lose all your oil or oil pressure, you might have got away with it.

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[cpthook]

Check sump gaskets and bilges? We hired a charter yacht recently and it used 2
litres of oil per full tank of diesel. The bilges were heaving with dirty oil. The
Charter company had supplied no spare oil or filling pipe. We had to improvise
with a hose and the diesel funnel/filter. Engineer confirmed a leak from the
gaskets/seals.

 

[charles_reed]

Most likely source of the leak was round the oil-filter.

Until you refill with oil and try the engine you won't know how bad the damage is, and I'd not like to guess.

If it wasn't a loud noise from the engine, that alerted you, the likelihood is that you've got away with it.

 

[dk]

When you say 'lost' its oil - do you mean it just disappeared, or was it in the bilges? If it was the former there might be a chance that it was burning its own oil as fuel - usually caused by faulty or worn piston rings. Otherwise fill it up again, start her up and see where it comes out from, using a mirror on a stick if necessary.

 

[ccscott49]

If it's not in the bilges, I suspect the long time between rebuild and fitting, that some of the rings are jammed, allowing you to burn all your oil, its unlikely the leak if there is one, would allow all your oil to be used up, Even if your engine was burning it, and even if it was using it as fuel, you would have been leaving a smokescreen behind you, which anybody would notice, unless it was pumped out, IE: from the filter, oilgallery plug, hose to oil heatexchanger or something similar. IMHO

 

[tr7v8]

Just found this on the web at www.volpen.net.

MD11C - Oil dipstick. Beware - always keep fully home the oil dipstick and the filter housing (the dipstick screws into the filter housing, which in turn scews into the engine). If you don't you'll lose all oil pressure :-((

Jim
----

 

[roger]

A trick used by an engineer recently was to take a sample of oil and pour it over a sloping glass plate looking for fragments of metal (bits of bearing) I dont know the exact experimental arrangements. It might be useful as a quick check for damage.