geoflse Posted July 5, 2011 Share Posted July 5, 2011 Just bought a second hand 1995 P38 4.0SE. It drove up to Fife from Derby on Saturday with no problems. On Sunday I got an oil warning light coming on constantly. Started it on Monday and the oil light went out. We drained the oil on Monday and dropped the sump. The oil pump suction strainer was full of bits of thin black rubbery sheet.Fitted a new oil filter and renewed the oil and all was well for about 15 miles and I got an intermittent oil light. I've now dropped the sump again and found another piece of the rubbery sheet in the strainer. About 3" x2". Has anyone experienced this before, or have any idea where it's coming from. Apparently the engine was rebuilt 47k miles ago. Thanks Geoff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elbekko Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 Perhaps it's liquid sealant that was used a bit too excessively somewhere and is now working its way through the engine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
streaky Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 I think you'll find that the valley gasket has lost some of it's rubber coating. This has happened recently to three engines here in Dubai that were all fitted with the same brand of valley gasket. The best thing is to flush the engine through a couple of times and then remove the sump again since alot of the gasket remnants are too big to go through the sump drain plug. I pulled a peice off from my oil strainer that was a few inches across. It's always a worry though since you hope that none of the old gasket will get stuck in the oil pressure release valve. This exact same issue happened to me and two mates last year. The culpret was traced to poor quality gasket sets from China. Regards. S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zim Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 Are you putting sealant on the sump gasket ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoflse Posted July 6, 2011 Author Share Posted July 6, 2011 Hi again. We decided to take the inlet manifold off as we couldn't find where the rubber was coming from. Exactly as you say, Streaky. The valley gasket has lost a lot of it's rubber coating. Glad we've found the problem. I don't suppose you know the make of gaskets you had trouble with. Delaminated valley gasket Thanks for the replies Geoff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
streaky Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 Okay.... thats what we saw over here too. I couldn't say what brand it was but I know that it was not an original Land Rover head set....we purchased an OEM kit to compare the two and the coatings are totally different. Mine is now running with the Rover valley gasket and all is now well again. Out of interest...what type of oil are you running? Mineral or synthetic? Regards. S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoflse Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 Not sure what oil was in it as I only bought it on Saturday. It has standard GTX in at the moment, as I had some in a drum. However, we'll give it a couple of hundred miles and drop the sump again then put semi synthetic in, or whatever the book says. Now rebuilt and sounds sweet. Touch wood!! Thanks again for the replies. Geoff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
q-rover Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Don't bother with semisynth. Either go mineral or synthetic, or make your own semisynth. Semi synth is a marketing tool, used to sell mineral oil at near synth prices, as the proportion of synth oil in semi synth is as low as 5% for it to be able to be called semi-synth. I always used either 5w-50 or 15w-50 fully synth in my V8's. Never had a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoflse Posted July 8, 2011 Author Share Posted July 8, 2011 Now there's something I never knew. Cheers,q. Geoff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
streaky Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 Geoff. The reason I ask is because my super-clean engine was always running on 20w-50 mineral oil. I switched to Castrol Edge 10w 60 and within 6000km the same valley gasket issue happened to me and it's weeping at every gasket on the engine. Was this just a coincedence? After changing the vally gasket to OEM I swapped back to mineral oil but the engines still dripped oil ever since. Same thing happened to my mate Jim with his 3.9 Efi.....no more synthetic oil for my engine! My Range Rover Sport runs on 10w-50 but maybe the newer design of Ford Engine can cope better with these synthetic oils? Food for though..... pleased we cleared up your problem though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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