Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

From the "stuff that works" department... Oil Changes

Get a "fluid extractor." They come in different sizes. They require no power.

They are available at different sources.

http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|311|296536|314179&id=1345777
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=11151&partNumber=11047123&langId=-1

I first used mine to "extract" some water from down in the bilge... worked great... was like a kid sucking on a 7-11 Slurpee... down to the last drop. That left my bilge virtually dry... over the next week or so the rest of the moisture evaporated (finally, no local rain storms) and I now have a dry bilge... Oh what a feeling!

I then tried it on the oil... ran the engine for a minute or two to heat up the oil... but it turns out I did not run it long enough... the oil was still cool and thick. The fluid extractor still managed to pull it all out just fine... and fairly cleanly and quite easily. It works like a bicycle pump... and creates a vacuum within the large chamber that just draws the oil up via a series of hoses. (2 different sizes to fit into the oil dipstick hole). it only takes a few pumps on the "bike pump handle" to get it to work.

Once the process was started, it was hands free... no messy pump, no loose hoses, and no immediate need of a second container.

I highly recommend one of these things.

Fair winds.

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