Changing Oil

[bigeye]

Use the 3/4" plug on the starboard side of the engine at the top of the crank case and below the carburator. That's what it is for. Use a simple hand pump with plastic hoses. Yes it can be a bit messy but not if your careful. Can't imagine waiting to take out three-four quarts of oil through the dipstick!

Early engines had a built in pump that stayed screwed into this access point.

Buy the Moyer Marine repair manual. It shows how to do many maintenance procedures.

Big Eye

[Scott Vickery]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I ended up using a battery powered pump. I wish I had bought one of the vacuum rigs, but, this worked well enough. I only seemed to get 3 quarts out, so, I flushed with 3 quarts, sucked it out again and filled it back up. The dip stick shows clean oil now.

The trick as had been said is to get the oil hot enough. I turned the engine on and waited for the temperature gauge to get up to about 170 or so.

Scott

[CalebD]

Scott,
Depending on the angle of tilt on the engine you will routinely only get about 3 or 3 - 1/2 quarts of oil out on each oil change when using the dipstick or fill port to empty from. You will always leave at least a quart of old oil inside the crank case which is why all of these guys have mentioned different engine access points for draining the oil (transmission, various plugs that are low on the engine block etc.).
I also use a 12V Jabsco oil pump to suck out the oil and it works well enough. I usually do 2 oil changes per year to help dilute the 1 or so quarts of oil I cant get out of the engine.

[campbdon]

Hi.
I have an Atomic 4 (1977) and usually use regular 10W30 automotive oil. I was advised recently that being an older engine I should use an oil with some of the additives present (eg: zinc), meaning an API of SL or lower (the "ell"). Most regular oils I see are SM or SN I think because of the effect of the additives on catalytic converts. I see many motorcycle oils (4 stroke) with SF or SG so I wonder what anyone here thinks about adding a few quarts of this to the crankcase? Also whether mixing 10W30 with something like 10W40 or other grades is ok?
Thank you very much and sorry for deviating from the topic of this thread
Don

[hellosailor]

don-
"Also whether mixing 10W30 with something like 10W40 or other grades is ok?"
Totally. What you'll wind up with is two quarts of "10w35" so to speak. Maybe not precisely but close to it. You'll have some of the 30-modifiers and some of the 40-modifiers, and the results do average out.

WRT the actual addtive mix in any oil grade, your best bet would be to call the engine maker (or in this, Moyer Marine) and then call the company that is making the oil. All the name brands have tech support departments who can and will look up what additive package is best for your engine, and tell you which of THEIR products is best compounded for it.

I think if you called Mobil, Shell, Amzoil (ahem), a couple of top names you'd find very similar suggestions from all of them. There are things that are not obvious when you reaed the can, or the web pages. Zinc may be used as a lubricant--but the Mobil synthetics have been used more expensive Molybdinum powders for 20+ years now instead, without mentioning it.
API and SAE also answer questions about this stuff, they LOVE it when a customer calls in and tries to learn what oil really is going to work best.

[tommays]

At this point in time a Dino oil for diesel like Rotella has the most stuff left in it and my A4 is quite happy with the 15-40

[smurphny]

I use a vacuum pump on the Yanmar which works well. My question is why the heck these expensive engines do not have oil pan plugs. There is plenty of room to drain into a container in many boats. Screwing around with pumps seems to be a pointless, time wasting, and unnecessary endeavor. Is there some silly law prohibiting drain plugs?

[hellosailor]

"Is there some silly law prohibiting drain plugs? "
Supposedly YES although I've never seen it cited. It is also apparently considered bad engineering practice to put in a drain plug, which chould vibrate out or strip out or corrode out, releasing the critical engine oil and stopping the engine. And, going into the bilge and then the water outside.
With no drain plug that just can't happen.

With a drain plug plus a catch pan plus a safety wire it can't happen either...but no plug at all is the cheapest simplest surest way to make sure it can't happen. Supposedly required by 'code' somewhere, somehow.

[MastUndSchotbruch]

Originally Posted by tommays

About the best place to get out ALL the oil is tapping a 3/8 npt plug into the transmission cover

Due to the angle the motors are installed and lack of oil filter I found the sediment settled in this area over the years

Seems like a nifty solution.

Here is another. Indigo sells an oilfilter kit. It uses the existing oil change hole that was mentioned by someone else to circulate the filtered oil.

Incidentally, on my machine there was a manual pump in this hole which was a factory option on some machines. It worked well enough but was not fun to use. And I wanted the oil filter. The kit comes with everything you need, it is very well made, and it installs in a lazy afternoon.

Now here is the connection with this thread: The fitting for the oil filter has a connector for an oil change pump. I bought a 12V oil pump on ebay and installed it permanently with the oilfilter kit.

Now changing the oil involves putting the oil hose in an empty container, open the oil change valve (just a ball valve from Home Depot), and pushing the button to run the pump. All done in 3 minutes.

I never enjoyed changing the oil, now I genuinely do! Admittedly, it probably gets out less than the nifty hole in the transmission cover (depending on the tilt of the machine) but surely more than what I got previously. And it is so easy (did I mention fun?) that I have been known to just do two (or three) oil changes in a row, separated by running the machine for 10 minutes, to mix the new oil in. Which means I get nearly all the old oil out, and it only costs me a couple quarts oil.

Cost is about $80.- for the Indigo kit, the pump was about $20.-. Plus maybe another $20.- for a ball valve, an electrical switch, a few feet of hose and a couple hose clamps.

[davidpm]

Originally Posted by downeast450

Thanks again.

I will add a plug this season while TD is on the hard. I still have only 23 hours on my 3 year old Moyer rebuilt. Mostly back and forth from launch / haul and maneuvering in close harbors. We can sail onto and off of our mooring. It is time to replace the oil because of its age if nothing else.

Down

Just out of curiosity how much did that rebuild cost?
Did you take it out and put it in yourself?