Senior Member
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: St. Louis
Posts: 1,074
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: St. Louis
Posts: 1,074
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I think pretty much all automotive oil filters use a spring on the filter element. If the oil can't get through the filter element, pressure builds up until the spring allows oil to bypass the element. Theory (and it's a good one) being that dirty oil >>>>> no oil in terms of the engine surviving the next few minutes.
As far as I know, about the only way oil gets from the crankcase into the intake is via the PCV system, which allows crankcase pressure (blowby from the piston rings) to vent out of the valve covers, into tubing, and into the intake system, so the engine can burn it. For a MASSIVE amount of oil to go through the system I think it means that (and there are plenty of other possibilities):
- there is a LOT of blow-by - so much that it is interfering with the oils ability to drain from the valve cover area back into the block, and it eventually starts flowing out of the vents into the intake. This is supposed to be a fairly modest amount of air going that way.
- there is something blocking up the drains in the head that allow oil (from the valve train lubrication) to drain back into the block, and it builds up until the covers are 'full' and oil goes directly into the intake, intead of crankcase fumes. Gunk, or sealer, or... who knows what?
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'99 Highlander 5-spd manual e-locker no-running-board
SS 3" suspension lift/1" body lift/33" tires/'Snowflake' TRD Taco wheels/231mm Tundra brakes/bumpers/armor/sliders/winch/Sherpa Matterhorn rack
Manual front hubs, NWF Eco-crawler transfer case doubler, second gas tank
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