Yesterday early morning my car died on the side of the road after experiencing an extremely bad oil leak. I shut off the car as soon as I could pull over once it started acting up. Then it would not restart or even turn over. I had the explorer towed to my house so we could look at it in the daytime. While looking at my explorer we found that it appeared the oil was leaking from around the oil filter. Upon further inspection of my engine 2 rods were found to have been thrown through my engine block. I've been trying to figure out all day which happened first the oil leak or the rods through the block. Prior to all this happening we had zero oil leak issues and zero engine knocking issues. What is the likelihood that a one time fluke major oil leak caused immediate damage to engine causing the thrown rods?

 

If it threw one rod that could have come first, but two rods , I would lean toward a lack of oil and oil pressure. Usually the oil light should have come on before the engine seized , unless you didn't notice it and kept driving.

 

My brother looked at the explorer again yesterday evening for me and believes because there is no damage like any bump or anything was hit with it hard enough to knock the oil filter loose. He thinks the oil leaking came after the rods. That night no check engine or low oil light came on which is why this is stumping me so bad.

 

You had to hear some unusual noise coming from the engine since it was running low on oil. Did you notice any kind of unusual noise and clatter before it quit?

 

No no unsual noise of any kind. Only thing different that said there was any issues is the engine started sputtering like it was going to stall so I immediately pulled over and shut the engine off but it was already too late.

 

I just read that the engine in my explorer is an interference engine so is it possible the timing jumped or something causing this?

 

Just because I have never seen a rod go out through the side of the block due to a jumped timing component doesn't mean it can't happen allthough I seriously doubt it.

Broken connecting rod bolts, lack of lubrication , over revving a cold engine , can send a rod out through the side. Usually , one out the side is sufficient to stop the engine. and we see something new every day. Might be a good idea to have an experienced tech do a post mortem and see if it can be determined just what went wrong.