Too much oil isues - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

One of Nik's DIY posts on Pelican Parts made me think in a different direction. I was thinking of replacing my 2001 Boxster S's AOS when I read that overfilling your oil can produce problems. I went and checked my dashboard oil level indicator, and sure enough it showed that there was too much oil- above their max line. Since there have been only 300 or so miles on the oil, I decided to take some out and get the level down to where it should be. Just by chance I noticed that when I park my car with front in toward the garage, on startup I would get white smoke just after the secondary air system came on. When I parked with the front toward the street, I got no smoke at all at startup. So, the comment about excess oil made sense. Parked one way, the oil would flow slowly toward the rear of the car and cause AOS to possibly be sending oil to the engine producing white smoke. Parked the other way, oil would seep toward the front making less available to produce start up smoke. I decided to take some oil out as it had only been in for about 300 miles. I rhink I made a big mistake by trying to take the oil drain plug out of a cold engine. I stripped the 8mm hex receptacle and when I followed the advice of going to a larger Torx bit hammered into place, I stripped it further. Rather than resort to hammer and chisel, I decided to try to pump out enough to get it down to the right level. I bought one of the cheap hand pump fluid extractors from Harbor Freight. I was skeptical but it really worked. The key was measuring their dip stick tubing against the actual dipstick to see how much tube it would take to get down to dipstick tip level. It took a bit of "twist" maneuvering, but I got that tube in and I began to rapidly take oil out. I took out about a quart and a half. When I started the engine, the red dashboard oil light came on but didn't go out immediately as usual. When I checked the dipstick, it showed oil on all of the dipstick tip-still too much. I'm wondering what could have happened. I'm guessing that the red oil light must get a signal when the oil pump sends a voltage when pushing oil forward in the system. I put some oil back in hoping it might help. I still have about 3/4 of a quart not back, the dipstick tip shows too much, the dashboard oi level meter says too much and yet I have the dashboard oil light on.How dangerous is it to drive with at light on? I'm thinking dangerous if its related to oil pressure suddenly being too low. What gives? Any ideas??

Couple of things: I absolutely hate those oil siphon systems as they often lead to more problems than they solve. That said, first thing is to obtain a mechanical oil pressure test rig that uses a gauge screwed in where the oil pressure switch normally sits. If you test it then and actually have oil pressure, my guess would be that when you stuck the sipon into the sump, the tube hit and damaged the oil level/temp sensor and damaged it in some way, casuing the light. If that is the case, you need to swap out the leve sensor after removing half the intake manifold. If you don't have proper oil pressue, some deeper diagnostics are going to be required.