2024 - Volume #48, Issue #2, Page #38
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Oil Loss Problem Fixed With A Pickle Jar
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“Guys fix all sorts of stuff with everything from baling wire to duct tape or zip ties, but I might be the only guy who’s ever fixed anything with a pickle jar,” says Minnesota retiree Joe Dolejs. Dolejs made the unusual repair in the mid-1980’s using a 1/2-gal. glass jar to capture oil leaking from the engine of his diesel-powered Volkswagen Rabbit. At the time, he was driving it 150 to 200 miles a day for work.
“I really valued its 40-mpg fuel efficiency,” Dolejs says. “However, at 200,000 miles, it started really using oil, almost a quart every day.”
Dolejs says friends who didn’t know much about car repair jokingly told him a piston was probably bent, the engine might just be tired, the oil pan had a hole in it, or maybe he was just using cheap and lousy oil. One guy even bet Dolejs that he couldn’t find out what was causing the problem.
“I was stubborn enough not to take it to a repair shop, and there wasn’t internet back then,” Dolejs says, “but I finally figured out that the glow plug had gone bad, probably scored a cylinder, and oil was going out the breather tube into the air cleaner. The filter was saturated with oil. Rather than fixing it, I put in a new air filter and came up with the wild idea of collecting the oil in a pickle jar and reusing it.”
Dolejs cut two holes the size of the breather tube in the metal cover of a 1/2-gal. glass pickle jar. He inserted the breather tube from the engine in one hole, so it touched the bottom of the jar. He secured the other tube a couple of inches below the lid and connected the opposite end to the air cleaner. “The large engine compartment had plenty of room to hold the jar so it wouldn’t tip over, so I shut the hood and headed off to work.”
Dolejs says, “After my first 60-mile trip, I cracked the hood and was pleased to see at least a cup of oil in the jar. After I drove home, there was twice that much, so I got out my little funnel and dumped the oil back into the engine.”
Dolejs says the jar fix worked great for almost 2 weeks. Every couple of days, he poured oil from the jar back into the engine. Then one afternoon, while driving up a long hill on the way home, he saw a big cloud of black smoke behind him. “I took my foot off the gas pedal and pushed in the clutch, but the engine red-lined, so I let out the clutch, and soon I was going 70, then almost 80. Luckily, I was on a four-lane road because I was passing cars like a race driver,” Dolejs says. “I turned the key off, but the engine continued to rev, so I shifted down and used the brake to kill the engine.”
He cracked the hood to find a very hot engine and his glass pickle jar nearly full of oil. “That’s when I realized I’d forgotten to empty the jar,” he says. The breather line to the air intake was submerged in oil. When he removed the air filter cover, the container and filter were soaked in oil.
“The engine was running on scavenged crankcase oil and spewing out black smoke like crazy, and I’m not sure why it was over-revving,” Dolejs says. “So, on the side of the road, still wearing my dress shirt and tie, I took out my little funnel and emptied the oil into the engine. After letting the engine cool, I turned the key, and it started. I babied that Rabbit all the way home, then took it to a repair shop the next morning on strong advice from my wife.”
Dolejs says the mechanics just shook their heads and laughed when they saw the pickle jar. Later, they told him a piston was badly scored when the glow plug failed, so oil was blowing out the breather line. “I had them put in a rebuilt engine, which was inexpensive at the time, and gave the car to my son, who drove it another 50,000 miles.”
Dolejs has enjoyed telling his pickle jar story many times over 40 years, usually after someone asks his opinion about why their car or truck isn’t running right. His reply, always a prelude to the story, is, “I think a 1/2 gal. pickle jar might fix your problem.”
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Joe Dolejs, Lakeville, Minn.
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