Hi I used Granville black silicone sealant and it was perfectly fine with good prep and allowing an overnight going off period , you can certainly spend more on gasket makers etc but that’s what I used ,I lightly tightened bolts evenly all round and then had a cup of tea etc and went back and sent them
Home hand tight , not overly tight or you’re compromising the thickness of sealant . 200 odd miles later now and totally dry

Well the person that said they were going to come around today and give me a hand getting the sump off cancelled on me.

On the plus side I decided to order a Brushless Impact Driver last night from Amazon and it arrived today and helped me get off the 6mm hex bolt I posted about

Of course there are three more 6mm hex / allen key bolts to go which I need to buy an extension for to reach. Also managed to get off all the front sump pan bolts using the same impact driver.

So some progress today.

I happened to mention my car problem in another non-car related group I belong to and loads of people suggested a simple engine flush at idle first to see if the oil pressure light flickers to suggest some kind of cleaning action.

I showed them the photos from the oil inspection camera but none of them think it's a crack, they just think it's carbon along the seems of the oil pickup pipe.

Well I've ordered some extensions for my impact driver - hopefully they'll be both long enough and strong enough to reach the other 6mm Hex / Allen bolts.

In the mean time thought I'd share a clip from the video I filmed when this all first began - I'm surprised at how many people who have seen the stills don't think there is a crack in the top of the oil pickup tube - wonder if the video changes some minds - especially around 10 to 20 seconds

[ame]https://youtu.be/1y4hI770SVY[/ame]

deeinlondon said:

Well I've ordered some extensions for my impact driver - hopefully they'll be both long enough and strong enough to reach the other 6mm Hex / Allen bolts.

In the mean time thought I'd share a clip from the video I filmed when this all first began - I'm surprised at how many people who have seen the stills don't think there is a crack in the top of the oil pickup tube - wonder if the video changes some minds - especially around 10 to 20 seconds

https://youtu.be/1y4hI770SVY

Click to expand...

There does not seem to be an obvious failure reason because each end of the black area is still intact. So how can it be a crack?

I still think you are correct to remove the sump , you seem to care for the car and from what I’ve seen your sump will probably start to leak soon anyway , there’s no harm in unbolting the pick up and inspecting it and checking for blockages , impossible to tell until it’s off , you just got a bit unlucky with your set up Being a little difficult to remove underneath , but it’s worth it even if it’s just to get the sump changed out and peace of mind all is good down there plus you’re better equipped to tackle more jobs in the future now

Fialfa said:

I still think you are correct to remove the sump , you seem to care for the car and from what I’ve seen your sump will probably start to leak soon anyway , there’s no harm in unbolting the pick up and inspecting it and checking for blockages , impossible to tell until it’s off , you just got a bit unlucky with your set up Being a little difficult to remove underneath , but it’s worth it even if it’s just to get the sump changed out and peace of mind all is good down there plus you’re better equipped to tackle more jobs in the future now

Click to expand...

I think you are correct in terms of peace of mind - however it's kinda proving a nightmare to get the sump off at home and I suspect would be even more of a nightmare to put back on the car.

However I just thought of another way to test for oil pressure - I noticed on the new Oil Pressure Switch that I installed that is said 5 to 7 PSI on it - so it needs at least that much pressure to disconnect the circuit.

So then I thought why not install a meter across the switch and use that to see if the switch disconnects once the car is started - I managed to find an old lead that fitted nicely into the pin of the switch - video below shows that as soon as the car is started there was enough pressure to activate the switch and break the circuit (which would normally turn off the low oil pressure light inside the car).

I don't know how the engine sounds to anyone else, it sounds fairly normal to me* - usually my car gets a lot quieter as soon as it's on the move. Also the car battery had been unplugged for at least a week so I assume the car's computer / ECU has lost all it's settings and is in a learning mode on this first start.

[ame]https://youtu.be/bBHuwm_ghnk[/ame]

BTW when I added back the oil to the car, I put in 2.4 litres and it showed at full on the dip stick, after letting the car run for approx 2 minutes and then rest for an hour I rechecked the dipstick and it went from full to half way on the dipstick.

I believe the car uses 2.8 litre in total - The oil filter is brand new but had been run on a previous test after putting in the new oil so I assumed it was holding a certain amount of oil as well.

I just managed to get the low oil light to turn off by plugging it back in the switch - it seems it's as if this system isn't as simple a ON and OFF even though that's how the switch works.

There was a small resistance in the wire that goes to the switch - so that resistance seems to tell the car the difference between being ON / OFF and Disconnected

Only thing I can think of why the light has gone off now and not the time I tested it after changing the oil pressure switch is that I disconnected the battery for over a week - so the car's computer has probably reset itself and lost old values.

I was thinking to myself it seems really unsafe to have a low oil pressure warning light that goes off when the wire is disconnected because if you got a cut in the wire by accident you'd never know, but by using a system of resistance it would be able to tell the differences between 3 states at least.

I got hold of a gauge from Amazon today but I think it's defective as the needle never moved, I'm not even sure if the oil is able to get through the tube and this same gauge has two 1 star reviews since the time it was ordered that said the same thing - it didn't work at all.

Interesting thing to note is that when I unplugged the wire to the Oil Pressure switch - this time it went off before I even started the engine.

So I think there is a mix of the light being something that gets stuck in the car's computer as always being on when there's no more fault and needs a computer reset, in my case probably causes by disconnecting the battery for a long time.

deeinlondon said:

I got hold of a gauge from Amazon today but I think it's defective as the needle never moved, I'm not even sure if the oil is able to get through the tube and this same gauge has two 1 star reviews since the time it was ordered that said the same thing - it didn't work at all.

Interesting thing to note is that when I unplugged the wire to the Oil Pressure switch - this time it went off before I even started the engine.

So I think there is a mix of the light being something that gets stuck in the car's computer as always being on when there's no more fault and needs a computer reset, in my case probably causes by disconnecting the battery for a long time.

Click to expand...

With a computerised car it does not seem correct that the oil light goes out when you dont have a sensor plugged in.

judderbar said:

With a computerised car it does not seem correct that the oil light goes out when you dont have a sensor plugged in.

Click to expand...

Well for now going to just see how things go - I'm not 100% sure or not if the photos from the inspection camera show a crack or not in the top of the oil pickup tube - most of the people that have seen it don't seem to think so

For now the car seems perfectly normal - sounds fine when running - no more Low Oil Pressure light - it's got new oil, new oil filter and a new oil pressure switch.

I think the takeaway from this might be if something similar happens to the car or similar Fiat where the low oil pressure light won't go off to also try disconnecting the battery long enough to reset the ECU.

Just read your last post , hopefully you’ve cracked it , as mentioned before though run engine and with bung off and make sure oil is hitting rocker area with any acceptable energy, And bring for a decent drive say 30 miles or so and make sure it stays off when car is properly hot If it stays off then I’d relax , good luck hope you cracked it , and rust kill that sump [emoji106]

Check out my latest post - I think you guys will find it interesting - be good to see if anyone else has the same issue as well.

https://www.fiatforum.com/punto-ii/...-car-battery-electricity-through-plastic.html