Club 80-90 Forums

Went underneath to replace fluids and first hurdle is this.
I'm assuming the drain plug is under the gloop. The PO would have had the oil changes done by a garage. Is the sealant a sign of good practice by the mechanic, just belt and braces or am I at risk of removing it and finding a knackered drain plug or even worse no thread on sump.

Not wanting to take van out of service this month I am tempted to get the oil sucked out this time round. And sort over winter. Can anyone recommend a good oil vacuum system?


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I'd say it's going to be a knackered thread or it would not be like that.


Yes buy a vacuum pump to remove oil via the oil filler tube and sort it later, this us what garages do so they can't be blamed for stripping the plug thread.

I wouldn't touch that ever.
It's not uncommon for oil to be sucked out.

Some decent kit on ebay

Yep, my sump plug refuses to budge so I'm not forcing it, I now drain via filler tube. alternative is to crack the seal on the filler tube and drain through there but wear thick gloves if you go down that route as it all gets a bit hot round there. I've used a a hand held sump pump like this...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brass-Oil-Flu ... XQUmFSn0Ab" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

flipping hard work so you may want to consider something more substantial if you go down the pump route

I ordered one of these yesterday. For the current price I thought it was worth a punt.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The oil filler tube is big, most cars don't have this luxary
you could probably syphon it out with a piece of hose pipe

PELA pump is the proper kit for this. Not the cheapest but it does the job really well and a lot of garages use them now, They come with different diameter suction hoses and the normal extraction route if through the dipstick tube. I have had one for years and its great. We use them at work when purging oil lines and draining the bunds on tanks.

I had assumed these pumps were electric but looking at them they appear to be hand operated, why not electric do you think?

My boat has a small hand operated oil pump like that above - it doesn't take long to pump out the 7 litres of oil unless you do it when cold in the middle of winter!
(Old engine)

The pumps produce a lot vacuum and can empty a sump in a matter of minutes. They were originally made for removing oil from boat engines. The pump needed to to run this, if electric, would be fairly expensive.

That's a useful idea about using the pump instead of the sump plug. Cheers guys.

Oldiebut goodie wrote:My boat has a small hand operated oil pump like that above - it doesn't take long to pump out the 7 litres of oil unless you do it when cold in the middle of winter!
(Old engine)

I bet you coyod waterski behind that pallet boat with that engine on it

If it were my van I would at leisure remove the plug and fix it.
The reason being that the sealant may fail in time and if thats all that's holding the plug in then you loose your oil

I lost my sump plug doing 70mph, as you can imagine it didn't take long before I had no oil but still doing 70mph.

Yeah but it wouldn't be a catastrophic failure.
Safe enough for a long time

kevtherev wrote:Yeah but it wouldn't be a catastrophic failure.
Safe enough for a long time

No you are right but a pain in the ar$e if it happens on your holidays.