Top down oil change

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Steamrunner

Member
Posts
11
Location
Coventry
Hi All,

Don't know if this has been done before, but I was at work talking cars and someone mentioned that a lot of car makers are using a "top down" method of changing the oil, rather than going through sump plug. Suitably inspired, I gave it a go and was really happy with the results. Materials cost about £7.00.

Items needed:

Empty 2 litre pop bottles for waste oil. Plus one extra lid
Fish tank air pipe
12V liquid pump (more about this below)

The pump was bought off EBay for about £7.00. I looked specifically for one that would handle liquid and solvents passing through it without damaging it. An example of this would be DC 12v D1 Lab dosing pump peristaltic head chemical water liquid Tube 2-17ml/min | eBay.

You will need to solder a couple of wires to the terminals of pumps. I also fitted a couple of crocodile clips to attach to the battery terminals.

Cut a length of pipe long enough to go all the way down the dipstick and hit the bottom of the sump. Attach this to the pump. On pump outlet side, attach another length of pipe.

Take spare pop bottle lid and drill a hole large enough for outlet pipe to fit in. Screw into one of the empty bottles.

Out at the car, take out the dipstick and run the tube down until you hit the bottom of the sump. Power up the pump and start pumping the oil out. One bottle is full, turn off pump, change the bottle for an empty one. Use one of the bottle lids without a hole in, you have a clean, ready sealed bottle of old oil ready for proper disposal.

Towards the end of the emptying out, I found it productive to jiggle the pipe up and down a bit to catch any remaining oil down there.

I found this to be really effective... By my calculations, it missed under 50ml of oil.

Hope that is of some use.

Adie
 
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