Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Aug 18, 2022 12:38:50 GMT 1
Is there anyone here that changes their own oil, etc? I have always done mine from the age of 15 and don't think twice about grovelling on my back under a car playing the game of unscrewing the plug and trying not to drop it into the catchment container where more often than not it splashes oil in my face. Fast forward to age 75 working on a sloping gravel drive where jacking the car up high enough to work under it becomes dodgy at best, complicated by modern(ish) cars being fitted with those silly soundproofing (?) covers under the engine by clips that rust and break easily. My question for those with the experience is.........are those little pumps with a length of plastic tube that is meant to be poked down the dipstick tube actually work? I've never considered them because of concerns about leaving heavier elements of crud lying at the bottom being missed. If they are actually worth using I might try it to work a bit safer and cleaner. The whole job would be even better if the designers would mount the oil filters the right way up instead of sideways on.
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Post by beejay on Aug 18, 2022 14:46:07 GMT 1
They are very, very slow even with warm oil so check the claimed discharge rate. The Fumoto drain plug is an alternative
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Aug 18, 2022 16:40:59 GMT 1
That Fumoto device is a very clever piece of kit. Direct from US it is £32.83 + £33.37 postage + ? duty and VAT. There is a distributor this side of the Atlantic selling them for £30.47 incl VAT but no clues what shipping would be to France. Clever, but no cigar at that price. The only bother it would save is the spanner work. I would still have to deal with fixing the drain tube and route it past the belly pan. And the drain tube is only 3/8" bore so probably no quicker to drain than a vacuum pump of the same bore.
Thankyou for the suggestion.
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Post by pcpa on Aug 18, 2022 18:32:53 GMT 1
I stopped grovelling underneath for vidanges several years back, I now have quite an expensive copy of the Sealey vacuum pump, its floor standing and you pump like a track pump for a bicycle.
As has been said the little pumps struggle with anything but hot thin oil but they have their place.
The biggest problem is the narrow bore and tortuitous path of the didpstick tube on most modern engines which require windscreen washer tubing putting down them, two problems, the wall thickness means you are now huffing and puffing like the electric pump, secondly tubing wants to curl so it will turn back up above the oil level and you cannot feel when it has hit the sump.
I have a collection of thin bore copper brake, fuel & hydraulic pipes which cope with most but some you just have to use plastic tubing.
I used the pump a few weeks ago and that time it was not labour saving, I spent as is often the way of these things 5 times as long fiding the fault and fixing the pump than it would have taken me jacking up, dropping the undertray and doing it the hard way.
As with many of these tools you really need the best you can afford and to use them very regularly.
One thing you may have noticed is that the quoted oil change volume is less than the refill capacity for a rebuilt engine, there is alway some oil left in the galleries, pump, pick up pipe etc, with my vacuum tool I suck a very considerable amount of oil out of the inverted oil filter base and also from the oil to water heat exchanger it is mounted on, I always have to add another 500ml to the quoted refill figure to et to the middle of the dipstick, that is 500ml of old oil that would have remained in the engine by doing a gravity drain.
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Aug 18, 2022 20:33:09 GMT 1
Fair dinkum. I'll just have to dig out an old blanket and crawl under again.
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Post by pcpa on Aug 18, 2022 20:44:55 GMT 1
Its one of the pieces of kit that I wished I had bought many years before, Didlydaldi often have the 12v electric ones very cheap, worth a try because even if you upgrade to a suction pump with recovery container like mine the pump will still be usefull for other jobs.
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Nifty
Member
Posts: 4,986
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Post by Nifty on Aug 19, 2022 4:50:26 GMT 1
Alternatively, just install a proper elevator hoist Jack what ever they are called so you can walk or hobble under the car and do the job properly more easily Think about renting long term. Expensive perhaps but servicing worries are not a concern.
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Aug 19, 2022 8:56:57 GMT 1
If a decent lottery win comes one day I'll be having a proper garage/workshop built with a properly installed 2-post lift................ and an industrial grade dehumidifier to keep my extensive tool collection from rusting.
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Post by pcpa on Aug 19, 2022 9:48:07 GMT 1
Alternatively, just install a proper elevator hoist Jack what ever they are called so you can walk or hobble under the car and do the job properly more easily Think about renting long term. Expensive perhaps but servicing worries are not a concern. Will it elevate the garage roof as well? Or in my case lift the house above the sous sol?
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Nifty
Member
Posts: 4,986
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Post by Nifty on Aug 19, 2022 10:25:58 GMT 1
It depends on the situation of course.
Vehicle Changing
Since we have had the leased Ionic I have been amazed at how clean the engine oil is when I periodically look under the bonnet to check things out and top the windscreen washer reservoir up. The checking things out part seems to be unnecessary as just about everything is has a warning light or audio warning. To the uninitiated this can be extremely distracting and a regular pita and is part of a plot to change humanity into more docile obedient creatures.
The lease expires next year and I hope that we are still in a position to seek a replacement vehicle. And I am thinking about what the options will be when the time comes. There is a possibility that the garage would offer to sell it to us, but, in the light that it will be over 4 years old the batteries will need replacing in the not foreseeable future, besides which, the car is too big, both to get in the cramped very easily so we will probably be looking for something smaller. I like the idea of roomy boot and hatch back and occasional possibility of 4 passengers. has anybody any suggestions what to look for while I will on the look-out for a replacement
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Post by pcpa on Aug 19, 2022 11:07:58 GMT 1
So you have a car that is too big for you but cramped and you want to buy something smaller with more room?
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Aug 19, 2022 12:19:27 GMT 1
Alternatively, just install a proper elevator hoist Jack what ever they are called so you can walk or hobble under the car and do the job properly more easily Think about renting long term. Expensive perhaps but servicing worries are not a concern. Will it elevate the garage roof as well? Or in my case lift the house above the sous sol? With pockets bulging with lottery-sized cash I would be building (having built to my specification) a garage/workshop with plenty of headroom for the lift. Probably a good air extraction system for the spray booth as well.
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curtis
Member
Charente Maritime
Posts: 474
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Post by curtis on Aug 19, 2022 15:47:56 GMT 1
I am happy to have the complete sous sol for my garage and workshop. But, the problem is height.Even a scissor jack would get any of the cars to touch the roof. And it would be too much upheaval to dig a pit.
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Aug 19, 2022 19:45:33 GMT 1
I had a pit years ago. Sadly I didn't find it all that useful. It had been dug too short. I had to climb in first and then move the car further onto it. Not easy working alone.
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Post by another on Aug 19, 2022 20:19:07 GMT 1
Still doing my own the traditional way.
When I had my MK1 Skoda Octavia I got thoroughly fed up with dropping the drip try so I cut a 3" square hole in it under the sump drain plug, problem solved.
I sold that car whan I quit France and as as simple convenience bought an old Ford Focus from a pal in Spain intending to keep it for maybe a year before upgrading to something better, in the end I kept it for over 3 years so had occasion to change the oil a couple of times and that involved jacking up and removing the under tray because that was the only way to get to the filter, I really hated that job.
The Skoda Yeti I replaced it with is a joy to service, there is an under tray but the sump plug is actually just beyond it's back edge and because of the higher ground clearance it can be reached just by laying under the front of the car and reaching back, no jacking required. The filter is high up on the front of the engine and has a built in drain mechanism which means that by the time it's half wound off it's contents have drained down thus leaving no mess whatsoever.
The dip stick hole is tiny so pumping out would take ages.
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