Oil level indicator on dipstick?

[the-pipe-bender]

Hello All around,

I am a new member and this is my 1st post. I just aquired a well taken care of low mileage, first year (2005) C6, 6.2 liter engine. The previous owner told me he thinks he added too much oil after the last oil change but couldn't remember by how much he overfilled it. With the engine cold, the dipstick clearly shows too much. The level is about halfway between the top of the hatched mark and the twist in the stick - where the red mark is on the photo. Does anyone know by how much he overfilled it and is this a proplem for normal street operation? Can I leave it until next change or should I drain the excess?

Many thanks for the help

 

[nascar03]

Hello PB....
Welcome to the CCForums...
If you think there is too much oil I think you should drain some out.
Let’s see some pics of your new toy.
Where you located?
Graham

 

[ddgermann]

I would get the extra oil out immediately.
As a matter of fact I would change the oil and filter completely. (If it was my new corvette)

Your owners manual will have all the specs on filter/oil and volume.

Personally I run all synthetic in all my vehicles.. Corvette or otherwise.

And welcome to CCF

Derek.

 

[VelocityYellowRules!]

Always had a rule of thumb, vehicles or farm equipment new to me.

The oil gets changed when it gets home, no exceptions.

What price piece of mind?

Welcome to the forum!

Cheers,

Garry

 

[the-pipe-bender]

@Graham, below are a few pics. It is an interesting car - canadian built for the European market with extra heavy duty breaks and some slight changes to the headlights and directional lights to conform to European standards (not necessarily better). I am in Austria. So is the Vette.

About the oil: Normally I would also just change it but since I have no lift, I would have to take it to a shop and that runs about 100$ plus for an oilchange. The oil is correct for a C6 - Mobil1 5W-30. Also it is practically new with about 250 miles since last change. So you can see why I am asking instead of just dumping it and refilling with the proper 5.5 quarts.

 

[ddgermann]

Definitely a sweet looking car. It's your call on the oil change but for sure you should not run it overfilled with oil. There are consequences to that.

Derek

 

[nascar03]

PB...
What a sharp looking car, very clean.
Thank you for the pictures.

Graham

 

[Keith Tedford]

Can you fit a small tube down the dipstick hole and use a vacuum pump, like the ones used for bleeding brakes, to draw off enough oil? Couldn't be any simpler than that.

 

[the-pipe-bender]

I tried that but couldn't get the thinnest tube down the dipstick-tube. Seems there is an obstruction somewhere down the end of the tube - it wont go past that.

 

[Keith Tedford]

I tried that but couldn't get the thinnest tube down the dipstick-tube. Seems there is an obstruction somewhere down the end of the tube - it wont go past that.

To bad that you didn't live near me. I have ramps and we could have the job done in minutes. The real danger is that if the crank is hitting the oil, it gets sloshed around and badly aerated which isn't good for lubrication.

 

[Rruuff Day]

I tried that but couldn't get the thinnest tube down the dipstick-tube. Seems there is an obstruction somewhere down the end of the tube - it wont go past that.

Dirty job but get it up on stands or figure out a homemade ramp, crawl under and pop the drain plug....You might even get it back in after you've drained a litre or two.... But don't run the car that much overfilled. And Welcome to the forum. Nice looking ride.

 

[the-pipe-bender]

Today I took the C6 to the shop and had the oil replaced with the correct 5.5 quarts of Mobil 1 5W/30. It now shows the correct level on the dip-stick. what gets me, though, is that I specifically told the mechanic to tell me how many quarts came out. He plum forgot. So now I again dont know how much it was overfilled.

Also, I looked at the owners manual and found something very interesting. For track use and hard driving it says to overfill by one quart and drain off the excess when returning the car to normal street use. So, I figure it couldnt have done any harm having the extra oil in there for about 200 miles. What really irks me is that I will never know by how much over it was unless someone here knows how much oil is in the crank case with the level I indicated on the dip-stick in red on the first post.

many thanks for everyones good advice !

PB

 

[Creedence85]

Great looking car, thanks for sharing.

Good move on getting the oil level corrected, I think you stopped a potential problem before it happened. I too have read the overfill procedure for racing and wondered, but if I recall you're only supposed to add 1L overfill, then drain out that 1L when going back to street driving. I'm going to estimate, based on the bottom hash line being 1L low, the middle being 1/2L low, that amount above the full line was a good 1.5L overfilled. You can get away with being overfilled a certain amount, but if you overfill too much it can cause even more problems than being underfilled. If there's enough oil in the sump for the crank to hit it, it can froth the oil which can get air pockets into the oil passages, and you can also get more blow by going past the rings.

I had a 1992 Nissan Maxima SE with the VE30DE V6, which was a funny engine because it was the same bottom end as a VG30E and VG30DE but with 4 valves per cylinder and a different head and intake manifold so it would fit under the hood in the transverse front drive layout. The oil capacity was 3.6L of oil, my mechanic changed the oil with Mobil 1 I provided (probably a 4.4L container), and when I asked him for the left over oil he said he put all of it in the engine as in his experience, he likes to run extra oil in an engine because of the extra oil required in the passageways, not just the sump. When revving the engine over about 3000 RPM it didn't rev smooth and uniform, and eventually it started running rough. I pulled the plugs, some of them had a small amount of oil on them, so I drained out the excess oil, cleaned the plugs, and it ran smooth and revved out properly after that. I also did some research on the engine and found that the oil level tolerance was quite tight, so all I could surmise was the crank was hitting the oil. I mentioned this to the mechanic, but he insisted that was not possible, which was unfortunate because that's the last job I had him do. I had the car for a couple years after that, it ran great, so I'm fairly certain I was right.

Your example of oil overfill, then how you asked your mechanic to check how much it was overfilled while changing it, help add to my reasons why I change my own oil and don't trust shops (dealer or private) until I have a good relationship with them. I've had overfilled, underfilled, the wrong oil, leaking filters and bungs, and I think it all comes down to the difference between professionals who take pride in doing jobs correctly and those who are just trying to get done and go home.

 

[the-pipe-bender]

creedence85,
Thanks for your comments and good inputs. I agree, if the oilpan has straight walls then it should have been about 1.5 quarts over. Maybe the last owner dumped 7 instead of the 5.5 quarts into it.

I wonder how an overfill affects oil temp and oil pressure at idle or normal driving? if at all?

 

[Creedence85]

I've had the oil pan off an LS once, helped a friend do a short block swap, as I recall the walls are straight, and there is a baffle plate inside. Temperature should be the same or better because there is more oil to retain and displace heat. I don't know how frothing might affect oil pressure if there are air bubbles in the oil pump or oil passages.

 

[Riley P]

Pumps hate a mixture of gas and liquids so if it was high enough to aerate the oil, the pockets of air would compress and oil pressure would suffer. There would also be less oil (as space would be taken up with air) to lubricate everything. 1L over the line is fine for racing because the pump is pushing so much oil to the top of the engine at high revs that it doesn't have time to fill the pan and hit the crank.
I imagine your car is fine if you didn't notice your pressure was low. The car looks absolutely gorgeous by the way! Welcome to the forum! Glad you found us and hope you feel at home here.

 

[the-pipe-bender]

Looks like I have the problem fixed now. If I learned anything, then that I will do small and simple things myself in the future, rather than trusting them to mechanics who are not familliar with this type of car.

Many thanks to everyone for the warm welcome to this Forum,

PB

 

[theboss]

Easy way to know how much overfilled the engine was, If you dont mind to invest a quart of oil, before next oil change, had some oil bit by bit (ex: 100ml per shot) until you reach the level it was, you will then know exactly how overfill it was.

Nice car

 

[Black 03 Z06]

Welcome to the forum PB.

That is indeed a really good looking car. Since it has European specs where in Europe did you find it? If you have some 2" x 8" (or 10") lumber you can make a ramp fairly easily to get the car up high enough to get a low profile jack under it. Along with some good jack stands you can start the maintenance work yourself.

Enjoy your car, must be unique in your part of the world.

 

[the-pipe-bender]

Found the car near Vienna, Austria with less than 20k miles on it. It was built to European specs in Canada. We probably have less than 50 Corvettes of all vintages here in Austria. It's a small country anyway with a population of less than 10 million people.

PB