Technical Brakes Gone Hard Massive Oil Loss

[foresttrading]

Hi all, just topped the oil up on my 2009 (high Mileage Doblo), after a few miles i notices message min oil press and solid brake pedal and a trail of oit after me. Any ideas ? Thanks

 

[TwyRob]

How full did you put the oil to? Was the engine cold when you did it?

 

[foresttrading]

The engine was warm. I may well have overfilled it though, it burns a bit of oil and i have to keep topping it up.

 

[TwyRob]

If it was warm you may have easily over filled it as oil could still be making its way into the sump. This could have caused a seal to go, resulting in a big oil leak.

Does the brake pedal feel hard like when the car is switched off?

 

[foresttrading]

Yes it is hard all the time.

 

[TwyRob]

Have you checked the oil level since? It might be brake fluid leaking out rather than oil. This is not likely to be related to your oil top up in that case.

 

[french bean]

This might be a bit of a red herring but - the servo for the brakes are air operated. If you loose brake oil then the pedal goes squashy i.e. it's compressing air in the oil lines not oil. While the pedal is hard to press that suggests that there is still oil in the system, just no servo assistance. Now, the servo takes it's air pressure from somewhere and I wonder whether it's linked to the crank breather. If that is the case then by overfilling with engine oil you may have blown the crank breather hose off the block which will then allow the excess oil to escape. On carbuerreted engines the breather would go to the carbueretter as the waste gases in the engine block would help with combustion. I don't know enough about Fuel injection engines.

Anyway, have a look and let us know.

 

[TwyRob]

Makes sense to me. I was trying to figure out how oil loss would cause a hard brake pedal and that answers that!