Oil change question

[Fman]

I was going to do my own oil change today on my '08 sunsport. I disconnected the drain line, ran it trhough the rear drain plug hole and removed the cap, and guess what, no oil came out???? I called Indmar and they said it should start to drain out, and said I should warm the engine up to normal temperature to speed the process up. He said it might take overnight to do it on a cold motor, although it was 100 degrees outside today. I tried to look for any kinks in the line and from what I could feel, everything looked good. I have very little room under my motor to try and actually look at anything, but it appeared to be kink free. I had about 2-3" of line left when I ran it out the back of the boat.

Does anyone know what I am not doing to get some oil out? any ideas, or hey dummy, this is what you did not do would be helpful.... I have done many oil changes on my own vehicles, and this looked pretty straight forward. At least I found the oil filter ;)

Thanks-
Fman

[TayTay]

I changed my own oil this sping and let me tell you, it was an experiance. What I did was go and buy a pump. They sell them for changing boat oil, or lawn mowers or whatever doesn't drain easy. I got mine from ACE for like $20. Then I warmed the boat up and hooked up the pump. My oil was REALLY bad, the previous owners must have not got it changed when they winterized it. Anyway, it was really thick so that little pump worked its heart out. Also, if there was ANY air in the line, it would pump so I had literally suck on the tube to get the oil up to the pump, and yes I got a little in my mouth, it didn't taste good. Anyway, it ended up all draining, it was seriously like pudding. I felt really bad for my boat :-( So thats what I did, hopefully yours isn't as bad as mine but who knows. Also to help it flow maybe, take to oil cap off the engine to let air in. I would buy the pump, a good investment. Good luck!

[Fman]

Made some progress, got oil coming out the drain tube from the bottom of the oil pan. I opened the filler cap and it started to allow the oil to drain out. I let it drain overnight but I still only have about 2-1/2 quarts of oil in the drain tub. Its a very slow drip right now, tried changing the angle of the boat and it still seems to be at a standstill.

I am going to have to go out and purchase a pump. Does anyone know if they make a pump to attach onto the end of the 1/2" drain line coming from the bottom of the oil pan? Its a threaded male fitting on the end, it would be great to just be able to attach a 1/2" extension line and pump it out through this line. This seems like the easiest way to suck the oil out of the pan, rather than having to go through the dipstick hole.

Thanks again for any input... fman

[TayTay]

The pump I got from ACE Hardware had a connection. If I remember right I had to kind of jimmy rig it with all of the parts that came with the pump but I made it work. I would give that a shot and see what happens.

[Fman]

Tay Tay,

Could you post a picture of what that pump looks like? Or give me a link to take a look at it on the web? brand name?

Thanks again...

[TayTay]

I am at work right now so I dont have pics. I will try to get one tonight and post it up.

[Fman]

Hey thanks, I would really appreciate that. Western Marine by my house says they might have a pump with 1/2" line I could compress on to the male fitting on the hose and pump the remaining oil out. I would like to see what you have before I go out and make a purchase. Hopefully I can find some pump to attach to the drainline, coming off this line will extract the most oil possible from the engine. This line is plumbed into the bottom of the oil pan. I have heard from others extracting oil from the dipstick wont remove all the oil from the engine.

[beast 496]

I change oil and filters in over 160 boats a year. This is what I use:
1 Five gallon plastic bucket with cover
1 12 volt Deisel fuel oil trasfer pump
1 1/2" rubber vacum hose approximatly 3' long
Misc. brass connections for pump to hose
1 90 degree spark plug boot

transfer pumps from Norther Tool, $95
Five gallon bucket from Ace Hardware $5
Rubber hose, brass fittings, spark plug boot all from Napa, cost minimal

I use only the hose to slip over the ends of the pan drain hoses, works great when engine is really warm.
I use the spark plug boot to slip onto the end of the hose assy on engines which just have a dipstick hose, IE; Mercruisers, OMC, ECT.

With this set up on a proplerlly warmed up engine I can suck out all of the oil in less than one minute, on a cold engine, 15W40 oil it may take as long as 3 minutes. For the average boater this set up would last for years, I replace my pump assy every year as a precaution, and to not have any slow downs. I have tried to use the drain hose out the back routine, but it takes way to long to drain all of the oil. Allan

[beast 496]

On all recent production mercuriser and volvo engines the dipstick tube is used in conjunction with the original drain plug from Chevrolet, this means every bit of oil sucked from this tube is what would normally be drained from the pan. On Indmar, PCM and Crusader engines most have drain hoses. I see alot of these laying in the bottom of bilges, creating very cold oil to initiallly start to drain. I try to keep as much of the drain hose as high as possible to eliminate as much residual oil from staying in hose. Most of these hoses are 3/8" id hoses with a much smaller 1/4" id adaptor fitting, this is why they do not drain very fast, especially if the oil is cold.

[FoiltechLaunch21V]

These are probably more expensive but maybe it will help.

http://www.overtons.com/modperl/product/catalog.cgi?cname=Oil-Changers-Filters&r=browse&aID=601L9

[TayTay]

That first pump looks like the one I have, FYI. It is cheap. If you are serious about doing your oil every year, it may be worth buying a better pump, it up to you.

[jonyb]

I've changed teh oil in my boat twice so far. Both times were a disaster.

The drain tube that's supposed to come out of the drain plug is too short. I have to pull it out with needle-nose pliers, then clamp it with vise-grips to hold it out. I disconnect the wakeplate and let it hang, but still get oil all over it. I let the engine run on a hose for 30 minutes that time, and it still took 2 days to get 1/2 the oil out. That's also with the fillcap open.

The second time, I bought one of those cheap pumps and thought I'd try that. I ran the boat up the lake for an hour, then at the dock stuck the tube down the dipstick hole. The tube melted because the oil was so hot. I loaded the boat on the trailer and went back to my camper. From there I tried to drain the oil out of the drain tube, but it was still just as slow as before.

Maybe I'm an idiot and I'm not holding something right, but this is ridiculous. I'll be extending that line, but that's gonna be hard to do since the drain plug is only so big, and the extension will have to go through that.

[Fman]

Finished my oil change today, picked up a $5 pump from Autozone that worked great. I had some old 1/2" fuel line laying around, this threaded right onto the end of the line coming off the oil pan and compressed right onto the intake side of the hand pump. Only took a couple minutes to remove the remaining oil in the pan. JohnyB, my line only made it about 3" past the drain plug hole. If you reroute it a little you can get an extra inch or two out of it. At first I barely had enough to reach the drain plug hole.

I was not able to get all 5.5 qts out of the motor. I primed the new filter with about 1/2-3/4 qt of oil and added a little more than 4 qts into the oil pan and it is up to the full mark right now. There probably is oil in different parts of the motor and lines throughout the boat that you are unable to remove the oil out of.

I am assuming if I change my oil every 50 hours this should be fine. I will try and post some pics of my whisky tango pump extractor. Doesnt look pretty, but does the job. Next oil change should take less than an hour, this one however was definitely not a quicky. :D