HELP! Oil Breather System Frozen!

[Righttoe]

Hi guys, am in need of some desperate help here! On the way to work the other day on motorway all of a sudden there were massive clouds of white/blue smoke from exhaust, pulled over and smelled very oil burning like!

Was almost at work, so got there and left it till home time, on journey home and for the next few days it was fine, but again it happened this week! On both occasions it has been below -3Deg C, so i took it to my garage.

Now ive got a oil catch tank on it with the filter in the wing, the guy at the garage said the filter in the wing had frozzen, not letting the crankcase to breath causing pressure and the oil squeezing through where ever it could either in to cylinders or turbo! Now i removed the filter in wing and just had the pipe there, all was ok for few days!

Today it did it again, and oil light came on, opened bonnet, all pipes to catch tank seemed very hard and there was oil coming from the filler cap and the forge blanking plate for the secondary air injection removal! you could here the pressure trying to escape through the oil catch tank! and the outside temp on way to work was -8Deg C!!!!!

Could this have caused long term damage? I've found all the parts to my original oil breather system to plum it back into air intake for now, with no catch tank and to put PCV valve back in, will this solve the problem? Havnt heard anybody else with this problem yet which worrys me because its cold in the whole country and alot of people run catch tanks!

Any help appriecated

Mike

 

[Righttoe]

help anybody? pleeeeeease

 

[tom w]

never heard of that happening before! better go check mine then ! can't be good for it though forcing the oil back like that

 

[Righttoe]

Anybody got any Thoughts on this please?

 

[Righttoe]

bumpety bump

 

[tarzan]

may mate had problem with that the orginal hose froz no catch tank on his audi rs4 came alot smoke he changed all the hoses on the oil breathing system problem solved.the garge sad since he dident you the car much just short trips and engine dident get up to drift temps 90degrees he got kondens.(what we call it her in norway don`t know the uk word for it)

 

[Righttoe]

thanks for reply! think im gona change back to original just to see this horrible weather through! as i think there is less chance of it freezing, such as the metal catch tank - proberly is very cold as it is metal and it has small inlets/outlets which could freeze easy due to there diameter

 

[Riko]

Don't mean this to sound condisending, but how long do you warm the car up before you set off? If it's runnng a good 5/10 mins it fairly warm by then for the pipes to flow? Although saying that my washers are still frozen 20 mins later!?

 

[Righttoe]

well i let it warm up for bout 5mins in drive and scrap ice off windscreen, and then drive slowly most of the way and it didnt go even when car was fully warm other day, and didnt want to keep it running to find out if it cleared if u know wat i mean lol!

It was about -7Deg so whole tank and pipes could have been solid!

 

[tarzan]

have no problem with my cupra we have -25

 

[RUM4MO]

have no problem with my cupra we have -25

Ouch!

 

[RUM4MO]

I'd reckon that now that this has happened, all you can do is what you are about to do - which is return the car to the way it was built by Seat, and when spring comes change it back. BTW, Skoda, I think, and VW and maybe Seat had an issue with badly designed engine venting leading to over pressurising in freezing conditions - this was with the Fabia (maybe) and definately Polo 9N and Ibiza 6L - bt only early models.

 

[Righttoe]

Thanks for all the info guys! Just changed it back over to the original system, topped oil up, gave it bit of a clean and checked all fluids and VAG com'ed it! Took her out for a spin, let her warm up and gave it a bit of stick then, no smoke and no signs of oil, smells fine from the exhaust also. Hope its all ok!

Does anybody think it could have done any long term damage? I dont think so (hope so) as it seems fine now after a good spin! Where could the oil have got burnt? my thinking was it had speezed through a seal on the turbo? but not sure!

 

[tarzan]

Thanks for all the info guys! Just changed it back over to the original system, topped oil up, gave it bit of a clean and checked all fluids and VAG com'ed it! Took her out for a spin, let her warm up and gave it a bit of stick then, no smoke and no signs of oil, smells fine from the exhaust also. Hope its all ok!

Does anybody think it could have done any long term damage? I dont think so (hope so) as it seems fine now after a good spin! Where could the oil have got burnt? my thinking was it had speezed through a seal on the turbo? but not sure!

you can blow seals on the turbo but lets hope yours are okey

 

[UncleFester]

If you look on tdiclub.com forums this is common place where the air temperature is very very cold - just like here of late. If you have the catchcan and pipework in front of the engine and the air temp is -5 ... imagine how cold that will be with windchill of 40mph for arguments sake.

The oil will have been forced past various seals, either past the rings and burnt or past the turbo oil seals and burnt off inside the exhaust manifold and exhaust.

I had this for a short time when I fitted a catchcan but the pipe diameter was too small. Reverted back to stock and the problem went away.

 

[Righttoe]

Yea i think Diameter of inlets on the catch can where a contributing to the problem, as the pipe work and engline are 22mm, and the catchcan i had which alot of people run had 12mm inlets :O