How much oil??

[mlines]

A couple of questions.

The boat is a 2008 Regal 2250 with a 5.7 Litre 350 MAG and Bravo 3 sterndrive.

1. The manual states the engine hold 5 litres of oil. I have attached a pump and extracted 3 litres. I have never pumped oil from a V8 before as our previous boat had a 3.0 Mercruiser. With the old Mercruiser we inserted a "catheter" oil pipe down the dipstick and could pump and effectively hoover out the sump. With the V8 the pump pipe fits onto the top of the dipstick and uses the dipstick tube as the extractor pipe so I am not sure whether this gets right into the sump?? How much oil should I be able to get out. The 5 litre statistic includes the filter and I did not get the filter off yet so I am not sure how much is in the filter. Unfortunately I did not dip the engine before I started to see how much was in there.

2. I went to grease the sterndrive and on my old Alpha drive there was a grease nipple on the side of the transom fitting that greased through to the bearing. There appears to be a similar nipple on the Bravo but it does not look 100% like a nipple as it appears to have some sort of thread on the outside but no clear hole in the middle (I tried poking it) it also would not pump in grease (it just squeezed out the sides). Any ideas on this?

Martin

[shibbs]

I'd love to be able to help but will shortly be in the exact same position having changed from a 2.5l to 5.7.
Will certainly go with your tip of dipping first to see how much is in there.
Sorry can't throw any assistance your way...

[mlines]

Just noticed from reading all the technical sheets that the later V8 (post 2002) only have a 4.2 litre sump which is closer to the 3 litres I managed to pull out so perhaps its not all bad. I also note that the manual states that "some oil" will remain in the pan when using this method and that this is ok. So perhaps I am worrying too much.

[_Ed_]

probably a good inch or so from the bottom of that tube to the bottom of the pump. Not the best way I guess, but if it works. Hate the thought of leaving 2l of used oil in there though!

[Ianfs]

One of the American guys I was chatting to at my sons wedding recently said he had a V8 and drained the oil via a pipe which was attached to the sump. He said there were 2 ways, which I thought was a brilliant idea, one was via the sump pipe which is attached to the bilge drain plug and the other was the method you described, but he thought you wouldn't get all the oil out that way as you have already thought.

Another idea would be similar to draining an older engine as you've already mentioned via a pipe pushed into the dipstick hole. I bought a small pressurised drain pump, Sealey or Draper I think, but the pipes supplied were too big to fit into the dipstick hole. I had some 1/4" OD tubing fitted to a Vax wet vac and cut some off as it fitted perfectly, it also fitted inside the supplied tubing. It takes a while but it does hit the bottom of the sump. Just a thought!

Oh and I'm pretty certain that when I was ordering mine they were asking whether I had the new type of gimbal bearings which are sealed and non-greasable.

And another thing, if your lucky enough to have the oil filter on the top of your engine, poke a hole in it with a punch to help with the draining, that was another thing he mentioned.

[mlines]

Thanks Ian, the "greasable" and "non greasable" bearing statement rings a bell from when I ordered the bearing on the Bayliner, that sounds like why the grease "nipple" seems blocked. Its probably a plug.

I had a good look around for the sump drain pipe as the bayliner had one (it was worse than useless as being the lowest point in the sump as it blocked itself with all the gunge in the oil). Whilst its hard to see I do not think there is a drain pipe and the dipstick is especially set up to take a pump. It was really quick and efficient to take the oil out apart from the "missing" oil. I use a small Ebay electric pump that I use on both boats and my car diffs and gearboxes, it works well as long as there is some warmth in the oil. You cannot use a catheter style pipe to go down the dipstick (I do have a suitable tube and also found copper brake pipe to be ok) as it is a metre long and curved inside the engine, it will not push down that length of pipe.! (This is based on the dipstick itself being a metre long and made of spring steel, it is quite hard to push this in as it is)

I have since seen that my later V8 only takes 4.2 litres of oil compared to the majority of the earlier ones that take 5 litres. So allowing for some in the remote oil filter on top of the engine then it sounds like I did the best possible. The guys in the states say this is normal and I found a sentence in the manual saying some stays in the sump.

[Ianfs]

I think when you consider that we don't grease vehicle wheel bearings any more and considering the ease in which the stern drives come off (apart from the extraordinary weight) and the longevity of the Gimbal Bearings they shouldn't require greasing. A replacement every few years should suffice.

The dip stick on the 4.3 is about a metre and has a curve in it, when you replace the dipstick it takes a couple of goes to get it right. Same with the small plastic pipe it'll go in to a degree then stop, so I twist it round a few times to clear the bend and it seems to work. Yours of course may have a more severe bend which would make it impossible.

So it now comes down to leaving a litre of dirty oil in the sump. Well my Land Rover has a dry fill capacity of about 8lires but a refill of about 7, so very roughly a litre of dirty sooty oil is always left in it every time the oil is changed. I would say that I agree with Ed and that it is preferable to try to get it all out but thinking it through, if the engine is well used and most of the carbons are burned off and it is changed regularly, although it is not the best, it is minimising harmful deposits if about a litre is left. Actually if you take into account the filter its probably 750mls.