Westsiders know how to take care of each other!
 

It's been a crazy day..

Today I was headed to W. Fort Worth to help out a fellow Factory Five builder that is almost ready to mount his newly painted body on his chassis. At about 7 miles from my house on IH-35W in Burleson my engine started making a God awful noise and I noticed that oil pressure had dropped to 5-10 PSI. I immediately shut it down and coasted to the shoulder of the highway and started trying to call for a wrecker. Before I had even finished dialing I looked up and there was Airspeed1 (Jerry) pulling up behind my car offering assistance. He just happened to be returning to the metroplex from the San Marcos area. Jerry stayed with my car while his wife and son took me home to get my truck and some tools.

Later after getting my car back home and discovering what had happened I then left and started driving to the auto parts store. A few blocks from my house I then ran into James who was driving his Street Beast.. haha.. I immediately stopped and asked "did Jerry tell you?" Turns out he was just in the neighborhood and thought he would stop by to check and see how things were going! He didn't know anything about what had happened earlier. Sooo, long story short, James went to the auto parts store with me and and then came over and helped me with get the Cobra running again.

Talk about a small world! WOW...

So now you want to know what happened with the car? I guess I had a brain fart when I changed my oil a few days ago. The oil filter o-ring from the previous oil filter stayed on the block and didn't come off with the oil filter. The new filter obviously doesn't seal well when there's still an old o-ring from the previous filter still attached to the block.. :) About 4 quarts of oil sprayed out from around the oil filter and out onto the road. Tracing my oil trail, it appears that it all came out over a stretch of about 3/4 mile.

Good news! After getting things cleaned up, the engine primed with oil, restarted and timed, it seems that everything is back to normal..

What a day.. Thanks Jerry, Sandy and James! It really is a very small world!

Its not the cars, its the people who make our little club the best. Glad all went well.

Joe,
Been there done that in the Mustang. Luckily for me, it started coming out during the test start and I shut it down before loosing all oil. Glad it wasn't anything serious.

I WISH it had started leaking at home.. It waited several miles before it decided to start leaking for some reason.. :(

Joe,

Glad to hear you (and your engine) came out OK. This could have ended much much worse. I always smear some oil on the face of the gasket to prevent it from deforming when compressed or afterwards sticking to the block where I might not notice it.

I had the same thing happen to me in the cobra one time, scared the crap outta me. I'm REAL careful now...

I do or did... but it still stuck to the block.. No excuses, I should have just made sure it came off when I took off the old filter.. Good news though, it'll never happen to ME again.. :LOL:

Joe:

I am so pleased that your engine is ok. I know you have a lot of fun stuff scheduled for your car coming up.

It was one of those weird timing things for us to be driving by. I had been on the road for about fours hours from New Braunfels. We stopped to grab a quick lunch about 10 miles south of Burleson...if not we would have been thru well before you got stuck there by the side of the road.

Then for you to see James on the road...strange, but good.

Jerry

I think we belong to a rather large fraternity. Awhile back, I blew out a tire on my car trailer near Burleson. I discovered I no longer had a lug wrench since it was stolen along with my dually. Just about the time I was starting to walk to town, a guy stopped and came to my rescue. Turns out, the guy lives in Waco and drives an ERA. He saw the cobra sticker on the trailer, turned around and came back. Glad you had no engine damage!!:)

Just curious Joe......did you last have synthetic oil in it before it leaked?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean..

I had been running conventional oil in it for the first 5000 miles.. On this oil change I switched to Castrol GTX Synthetic Blend for the first time.

Because I have a theory that synthetic film might give better protection for a while when oil pressure is low or gone.

LOL, that is the same thing I said. So far I haven't done it again.

Oh okay, I got you now.. You might be right, but judging on the noise coming from the engine I don't think it would have lasted much longer without serious damage. It took me a few seconds to realize it was MY car and not some of the other nearby traffic.