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A lesson in patience and frustration

1K views 7 replies 5 participants last post by  Lone Ranger 
#1 ·
*sigh*... did a quick oil change on the farm truck, '97 F250 7.3L PSD 4x4 auto. No real big deal besides trying to transfer 13.5L of oil from a 20L bucket to the engine. Nearly an hour of transferring it one litre at a time through one funnel into an old 1L oil jug then pouring it through another funnel into the engine. :icon_confused: Sorry, nothing really of any interest just venting thats all!!

Still better than changing the oil on the tractor, should have hosed it down first to get the horsesht off of it tho d'oh. Spring maintenance day today, at least the weather was half decent for it!

I'll post the dancing dude icon so there's at least something interesting to see here :icon_cool:

:H)
 
#2 ·
Actually, there is one question I do have regarding the truck: how difficult is it to change the fuel filter on them? It was done last year so it should be ok still (it doesn't really see a huge amount of hours on it, just putters around a small horse farm and hauls water in between). I'm actually more worried about water and algae bloom rather than dirt since its filled off of a 500 gal farm fuel tank, but I do throw a bit of Howes in there every once in a while tho. LR
 
#3 ·
Pretty easy to do. It's at the top center of the engine, you will see a round black plastic cap. Use a set of chanel locks to unsrew it and pull the filter out. New filters sometimes come with a new cap and sometimes just a new gasket, depends where you get it. You might also want to remove the fuel from the filter housing to get rid of any water that may be in there.
 
#4 ·
I too used the 20L pails when changing oil on my '95 7.3 but I did it much faster. Try this: Leave both caps on and "spigot" pulled out, then simply lay the pail on the right fender well (you can use rags to prop the pail level if needed) so that the spigot (make sure it's on the bottom) is lined up with the oil filler tube and a funnel in the tube. Place a rag under spigot to catch any drippings...you'll learn not to spill anything after a couple of tries. Then, making sure you don't let go, start unscrewing cap and when it's almost off, just tip the cap a little sideways kinda like this: "]\" (hope that makes sense). Like this, you can control the flow easily while letting a little more than half of oil out. Screw the cap back on to stop flow...wait a few...check oil level...repeat, till full. It took three or four times for me to ace this and have oil changed in about 1/2 hour. I also used the same technique to pour oil into a 1L can to prefill the oil filter. Hope this helps you if you choose to try it.

I would take some pics but I don't have that truck anymore. Now I don't even change my oil in my Super Duty 6.0 as my buddy does it for me for $15 labor! Can't beat that.
 
#6 ·
Yeah, never thought about using the transfer pump. I was going to throw the whole bucket on the fender (yup it made sense) but I was worried about overfilling the engine. I had one half full bucket and one fresh one, so it was a little difficult to gauge exactly how much oil I was putting in. I was trying to find the 5L jug I had from when I hydrolocked my Ranger, but I guess someone threw it out already - that would have made the process infinitely quicker!

It was a pretty simple truck to change the oil on considering all the fuss and BS I've heard shops complain about. We had another guy who used to keep up on top of all the equipment maintenance around here but he's moved on, so with no one left stuff was just getting forgotten about (landlord suffered a severe stroke, so its up to his 55 yo wife to keep the place going). I haven't had a whole lot to do lately so its a good little project to keep me busy, and besides, I use the truck and tractors a fair bit as well too. LR
 
#8 ·
We'd just tossed out all our garbage and recyclable stuff so I was pretty tight for containers to use. I finally found the 5L just I was originally looking for, it was buried deep in the shop garbage can so I put it aside for next time.

Meh, it worked itself out just took a lot more time than it should have, thats all. LR
 
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