Burst Oil Filter. Excessive Oil Pressure?

[Ecc]

This morning, the Motorcraft FL820S filter ruptured at the seam on my wife's 2003 4.0LV6 Explorer. Looks to have happened at cold start, or at least before she drove off. She didn't notice it (sigh) and drove about a mile or two before all the oil pumped out and the engine started clattering away. She called me, and I of course told her to pull over and shut down RIGHT AWAY...


Went and looked at it, and there was oil all over the bottom of the car, coming from the OF area. I figured that the can popped at the seam (seen that happen with other cars before) or the gasket blew out. Had it towed home, removed the filter, cleaned things up, put on a replacement filter (bought at the same time as the burst unit, and with a similar code printed on the can), filled 'er up, and had a good look at the old filter.

The blown filter had the endcap all 'ballooned out' and the can pulled out of the seam about 1/3 of the way around. Sprayed oil all over the place, including on the PS exhaust manifold and exhaust hardware. Thank God it didn't catch fire. I became concerned that I had a problem in the engine causing excessive pressure (blocked passage, or failed pressure relief valve). Decided to run the engine in the driveway for a while to see if the endcap on the filter 'ballooned' like the last one.

Fired it up, and after a second or so the lifter clatter went away and the engine sounded fine. Pressure reading on the factory (crapy) gauge looked to be just over 1/2. Ran the engine up to about 2K and held it there for about a minute. Dropped it down to idle and went round to check the filter by lookin' over the PS front tire. Sure enough, the endcap is now 'ballooned' like the last one. CRAP!!! Ran around and shut 'er down. Did a search here for "burst oil filter" and didn't really find anything useful..................and now here I am.

Don't yet have a book for this vehicle (yes I know I suck...). Is this a common problem with these engines? Has there been a bad run of these filters? I run Mobil-1 synthetic and FL820S filters exclusively in this Explorer.

Is the PR valve in the oil pump? Do I just have to pull the pan, pull the pump, dissassemble it, and clean things up? I work swing shift M/F and am supposed to go away on a family trip this weekend (taking the Explorer of course). I have NO time to deal with this. That's how it works I guess....

Help!!!

 

[swetrid]

One of 2 concerns, pressure relief valve stuck or bad oil filters. I seriously doubt 2 bad oil filters in arow but anything is possible. I see you are 2wd so it should be easy to get the oil pan off and inspect oil pump.

 

[Mark Sherrill]

This morning, the Motorcraft FL820S filter ruptured at the seam on my wife's 2003 4.0LV6 Explorer. Looks to have happened at cold start, or at least before she drove off. She didn't notice it (sigh) and drove about a mile or two before all the oil pumped out and the engine started clattering away. She called me, and I of course told her to pull over and shut down RIGHT AWAY...


Went and looked at it, and there was oil all over the bottom of the car, coming from the OF area. I figured that the can popped at the seam (seen that happen with other cars before) or the gasket blew out. Had it towed home, removed the filter, cleaned things up, put on a replacement filter (bought at the same time as the burst unit, and with a similar code printed on the can), filled 'er up, and had a good look at the old filter.

The blown filter had the endcap all 'ballooned out' and the can pulled out of the seam about 1/3 of the way around. Sprayed oil all over the place, including on the PS exhaust manifold and exhaust hardware. Thank God it didn't catch fire. I became concerned that I had a problem in the engine causing excessive pressure (blocked passage, or failed pressure relief valve). Decided to run the engine in the driveway for a while to see if the endcap on the filter 'ballooned' like the last one.

Fired it up, and after a second or so the lifter clatter went away and the engine sounded fine. Pressure reading on the factory (crapy) gauge looked to be just over 1/2. Ran the engine up to about 2K and held it there for about a minute. Dropped it down to idle and went round to check the filter by lookin' over the PS front tire. Sure enough, the endcap is now 'ballooned' like the last one. CRAP!!! Ran around and shut 'er down. Did a search here for "burst oil filter" and didn't really find anything useful..................and now here I am.

Don't yet have a book for this vehicle (yes I know I suck...). Is this a common problem with these engines? Has there been a bad run of these filters? I run Mobil-1 synthetic and FL820S filters exclusively in this Explorer.

Is the PR valve in the oil pump? Do I just have to pull the pan, pull the pump, dissassemble it, and clean things up? I work swing shift M/F and am supposed to go away on a family trip this weekend (taking the Explorer of course). I have NO time to deal with this. That's how it works I guess....

Help!!!

Experiencing exactly the same problem in my 99 2wd Explorer. Replaced my engine 2 months ago with low mileage rebuild. Love my explorer. My 4.0L 6 cylinder has run nose to nose highway race with a 2015 canbarelygo. I couldn't pull away from him...... But he couldn't pull away from me either. Later I found he was running a high output Chevrolet v-6. Enough fun irrelevant bragging..... Is this ''Burst oil filter'' problem for sure an oil pump pressure relief valve problem? What is the fix? Replace oil pump?