Oil filter fell off while driving!

Weld the bung hole shut. Then drill a hole in the side of the oil pan, not too low though. Once a stoma forms install a colostomy bag over it like the surgeon did on my wife. Viola! It'll shit oil in the bag next time, not on the road. Damn, I gotta' stop givin' out all this free advice and start chargin' for it....

 

OP do you have many people that don`t like you??

Don`t really drive the truck since the service late last winter a few hundred miles??

I can`t see a loose filter staying on that long and not leaking at all till it fell off.

Looking forward to your telling us what caused the filter to fall off.

 

Its impossible to say! A couple points though, yes I only put about 3,000 miles per year on the truck. Its a weekend warrior. I had driven it to the bar the night before, about 1 mile each way. That morning it was cold, like probably the coolest its been since changing the filter, this year it was up to 120F this summer, so lots of temperature swings. Maybe some thermal expansions happened and loosened the threads. The evidence on the road shows it started gushing after driving 6 blocks, then gushed about 2 more blocks before the filter fully fell off. I drove it cold like always, thats why there was not a lot of smoke when the oil gushed out as one person asked.

I also drive the truck pretty hard. Potholes, gravel, I don't brake for speedbumps. When I make mud cookies I spin counterclockwise usually. G forces unscrewed it? haha I hope nobody hates me that much, but I also live in anarchy crazy land. The night at the bar there was an angry lady walking by throwing glass bottles into the street. Perhaps random mischief. Probably just bad luck

 

Engine seized up, but then ran after adding oil?
I'd say go buy a lottery ticket.

 

I forsee Valvoline Maxlife 10w40 and a dash of motor honey in this engine's future....and hope that it uses only a quart or two for each 1000 miles it's driven

 

That's why I install my oil filters on with permanent Loc-Tite.

Shit ain't going nowhere.

 

Never heard of an engine unseizing once seized.

Some sort of safety mechanism? Air lock? Locusts?

Actually seized? Maybe not.

 

Yeah maybe seized is the wrong term but I don't know what else to call it... I was starting up a hill, going about 20, put it in 3rd perhaps a little lower on the tac than is ideal, but it would normally bog through that like it has a thousand times before. This time, however, it just stopped when I gassed it. bbblluuuhb. Almost like killing it with the clutch. But the clutch was already fully out at and I was rolling. After rolling off the main road a turned it over make sure it wasn't interference and turned it back off. Opened the oil cap and smelled what I can only describe as hot metal. Not quite like burning oil or like brakes but like some hot alloy. New smell. That would probably be the rings I smelled. But, been driving it about 100 miles since then, just fine. Possibly less torque than I remember, but I hauled 2000 pounds of rock in the bed and it was pulling just fine.

Edit: would oil pressure warning light roll back the timing plan? Maybe it was a safety mechanism at work.

 

Hot metal expands just enough to stall the engine.

Once it cooled down it started

going to be interesting if it lasts a 100 miles buy a powerball ticket.

 

Sounds like you got it shut down just before catastrophic failure lol
Lots of extra heat and friction in the engine and it wasn't liking it.
I once had a free oil change on a motorcycle and at the same time a new rear tire put on. Well a new tire can be a little slippery and the tire seemed a little more squirrelly than usual. About 40 miles from the dealership the oil light came on and I shut it down immediately. Granted easier to see on a motorcycle but it leaked about the last 3/4 quart on the ground. Oil plug never got tightened and fell out.
Weird that your filter worked it's way off and didn't give indication sooner, smoke and stench...mess on the ground

 

I have seen this many times when I was the LOF guy at my local Toyota dealer. The prior oil filter installer didn't want the new oil filter to fall of so they over tightened it. The next guy spins the old filter off and the old o ring stays on the filter adapter. A new filter goes on and he tightens it. I have seen up to 3 o rings on the adapter. Somewhere down the road the first o ring pushes out and now the filter is loose. Some owners catch it by the oil leak in the driveway others don't. How long will it take to vibrate loose enough to fall off, who knows.

 

This sounds like a potential Q-tip.

 

Christ...as of today, I know what this means. Let's keep the 3rd gen dumpster fires threads in the 3rd gen section.

 

I've had two events that caused a rapid loss of oil pressure (thrown rod and loose oil pan plug). In both instances the dash light comes on and an audible alarm sounds. Did you have your music so loud you couldn't hear the tone?

 

I can agree with this But OP states no oil leaks to it fell off that is what bothers me.

I have been distracted and never finished tightening the filter only to discover a slight leak at start up.

 

Sounds to me like the filter itself failed. Either the threads stripped or part of the filter base blew apart. Could be compounded by cold or incorrect viscosity oil.

 

Just a wild off-the-cuff thought.

Is it possible that Toyota has a fail-safe mechanism to kill the ignition and fuel flow in the event of oil pressure falling below a threshold???

To me this seems a reasonable possibility. All the ECU and computer control in modern vehicles, this would be an easy sub-routine to program.

 

sorry....

but I thought it was funny as hell....