Art & Inspiration Tales From the Oil Change Pit...

I know we can drive our Y block 49 coupe 40 ft before it dumps most all the oil out past the filter. Changed the oil and filter , luckily only drove it 40 ft to the hose to give it a wash. There was a huge oil trail from the shop to the hose. found out the O ring of the old filter was still stuck to the pump . What a mess .

 

I was an oil change jockey in a small shop years ago. A guy comes in for an oil change on his OT Chevy work van. Our oil changes were in sale for $9.99 at the time (it was the early 80’s)
After I pulled the van in and put it up on the lift the owner is belly laughing and bragging about how he hasn’t changed the oil in about 35,000 miles. Hahaha.
Took us over an hour to get the filter off, and it pretty much looked like that one. Took it off a chunk at a time. The customer wasn’t laughing when the manager charged him shop time for all the labor we had to put in it.

 

Speaking of oil changes many years ago as a lad I worked at a Ford dealership. My bay was next to the lube rack. We could not keep our "grease monkeys" to long as they came and went like a revolving door. We just hired a guy who said yea know all this stuff so they cut him loose on the rack. 1st day in while using the bulk hose to fill up the engine. he was told 1 revolution on the dial was 4 quarts of oil and another quarter of a turn was 5 quarts. Yup not listening he had the needle spin 4 times around plus the quarter of a turn. And when he started it up what noise the poor motor gave out. Sounded like a washing machine full of clothes. That crank was slinging oil all over the place inside the motor. Oil coming out everywhere. Long story short he got fired and we had to repair the customers car. Still see that dial on the bulk hose on the grease rack.

 

funny how my car has basically black oil at 500...

 

When I was 16 I worked in a filling station that was owned by a company that sandblasted buildings and did tuck pointing. They had a number of air compressors on 2 wheel trailers run by a 4 cylinder engine. We did all the maintenance on them and the company trucks. The drain oil out of the engines went in the drain oil tank. The oil that came out of the compressors looked like brand new. Some of the guys would take that oil and run it in their old cars. My buddy would put it in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid and let it set for a couple of weeks just in case any sand got in the oil when the compressor was drained. I was never brave enough to use it.

 

Not a change pit, but..... first company I worked for in East Texas, there was a feller who would come in to work, park his old truck and slide a catch pan under the engine. At the end of his shift he would pour the contents of the drain pan back in the engine and drive home.

 

how did it not blow up???

 

He checked his oil of course...

 

Long time ago I was taught to put a smear of silicone grease on the filter seal before installing. Always filled with oil if possible before install. Maybe lucky never had one stick. but that was on aircraft engines and they were torqued on. Do same standard on auto engines. For what it's worth just a suggestion.

 

i personally use motor oil on all my filters.

 

Rubber and steel takes a bath in motor oil so it's truly all that's required as it's designed with that in mind...I still think torque is the biggest enemy in removal or installation, oil, silicone or lard...

 

I had a friend who ran a taxi with a 202 C.I. Holden 6 (think of a Chevy 250, but about 10% smaller in all dimensions), and I once asked how often he changed his oil. "I don't, I just keep topping it up". It had over 100,000 miles on it, and him being such a cheapskate only did what was required. The more ignorant you are of things, the less trouble they are. If I tried that, the engine would have grenaded after 15000 miles.