Hi,
This may seem daft... actually it is daft, there is no doubting that. I have a '98 Primera 2.0GT (UK). Upon changing the oil this weekend I managed to cross thread the new filter. I switched it on only to be met with lots of rumbling and general loudness. Rather than switch it off straight away, i had a look under the bonnet to see if there was anything amiss. Nothing untoward. I then peered bac into the car and the oil lamp was on, so I turned it off. All in all the engine must have been runnning for a good few minutes. Like I said, i'm not the cleverest person when it comes to cars... just muddling my way through.
Since then i've been paranoid thinking i've done some damage, thinking I hear noises (knocking and scraping). What damage am I likely to have done? How can I check for damage?
The scraping noise is there, but i'm not sure if it was there before. Its not a constant loud scrape but one I notice when the engine is revving <3000rpm.
Ease my paranoia somebody, please!!

well you can start by getting the filter on CORRECT! Then refil and see what it sounds like. It will hopefully go away! I've seen many sr20's run dry from the miss-installed filters. and when its got new oil in it, it starts up then quiets back down to normal....

now I would image some damage was done. If the noises go away your saved, and if they don't go away.... well time for a new sr20

Sorry, ,forgot to put... i did refill with oil and for the first second or so it still was noisy but it then died down. I think the most obvious thing when I restarted it was the hydraulic tappets.. once they got a tast e of oil they quitedend down. Now when I first start mt car it always seem louder initially but then dies down.

I agreed, redrain the oil again will you. No engine damage from such issue.

Didn't need to redrain it, it spilled out through oil filter onto the floor ;-)
I'm just annoyedd how much money I wasted though... £4 for the initial engine flush, £30 for dedcent synth oil, £9 for oil/engine additive....all over the road! :-(
By the time I did it (8pm on a Sunday night) all garages were closed so I had to refill with cheap mineral oil. Oh well... it should never happen again... never happened before either!

Originally posted by IncredibleSchmo
£30 for dedcent synth oil, £9 for oil/engine additive....all over the road! :-(


Wha wha wha what?? 30 POUNDS for good synthetic??!! What in the world are you using??? Even a racing brand like Royal purple doesn't cost that much! (I got charged $90 australian to have a oil and filter changed to royal purple - which is what you paid for your oil alone!)

Anyway, you might be in luck. You said you used oil/engine additive. if it's a teflon based one, and you've used it several times before, you might be in luck. Teflon can bind itself to metal surfaces, acting as a kind of lubricant... Unfortunately, if you have no oil there to take away the heat, at about 400 degrees C, the teflon then melts and becomes useless. If you only had it on for a few minutes, it may not have reached that temperature and thus the teflon may have protected you from engine damage...

A lot of ifs there, I know, but let us know how you go after you have the oil back in there.

I have oil back in. Like I said, ,it sounded rough and lud when I first switched it on but then it died down back to normal. I 'think' I hear scraping/grinding noises but i'm not sure if this is just paranoia or not.
I popped the bonnet yesterday to liten, and there does seem to be a speradic ticking noise coming from the timing chain end? It comes and goes... not loud by any means but that is there. Might have been there before, i'm not too sure.
The oil I useed was Mobil 1, £30 is average price here for the oil. It was a 4Litre can though?!

When I say average pricec for the oil... I mean average price for Mobil 1 synth. I can get other brands cheaper, but I assumed this was good stuff. Am I wrong? I've not seen Ryal Pruple before, is that an Aussie brand?
Cheers

I suppose things are more expensive over there... It's about $30 for a 4L bottle here too, but then $3 = 1 Pound (sorry, no pound symbol on this Keyboard)

Mobil 1 is the good stuff. I either use that, or Honda FEO Type R oil. (Specially designed to not froth and to retain viscocity when the engine is revved to 9500rpm)

Royal Purple and Redline, I tend to recommend to my friends who want something that touch better than Mobil 1. It's very hard to get here. Mechanics don't keep it and department stores certainly don't. I think they're imported in from the US, and only performance shops have them. To be realistic, I doubt you'd see a single HP gained, or a significant difference between using Mobil 1 and Royal Purple in terms of engine wear, but some people like to think they're "treating" their car, and if paying $14 per litre (that's getting closer to the price of Mobil 1 over there!) for oil, then great.

http://www.royalpurple.com/

http://www.redlineoil.com/

Yeah, things are generally more expensive in Britain. When I stayed with my sister in Scotland, I couldn't believe the price of beef. It's twice what I pay for it in Canada!

I had an oil filter blow off my car (a 200sx filter on an NX2000). I refilled with oil, and all was fine. You're probably going to be fine, the engine wasn't run under load, and it wasn't run for a significant time.

James

Well fingers crossed!!

and ... hmmmm beef!