How long has it been since you used motor oil from a can?

Not forget the 4-5 quart fill can for engine oil with the long fill tube and the release plunger to release the oil... my father mixed STP and oil in them , to fill the 327 in his 1967 Elcamino... cause you know: STP would not mix in the oil if you simply poured STP into the engine. LOL

 

I got a case of IH 30 w from work in the late nineties. It was sitting in the fuels and lubes lab ba*****t for probably 20 years.

Don’t remember what I used it in.

I have a can of Valvoline (I think) on display above the urinal room in the garage.

 

I remember seeing a deluxe can spout on clearance at the K Mart auto department. Bright yellow vinyl coated. Cheap enough I had to buy it. I should have known it was a sign of cans going away. I think I still have it.

Gary

 

My last year of stock cars, 1984, I was using 50w Kendall in can form.

A few years before, we had a discount store that sold Wolfs Head racing oil, straight 50w. That went into my junkyard beaters and tow trucks.

 

We moved to the farm in 1964. There was a one car wooden garage there. Mr Derbyshire the previous owner had about a 4 foot piece of eavestrough attached to the wall at a slight angle with a shelf at the bottom. After your oil change you put the cans in the trough so they could drain into the can on the shelf, then you used that oil to fill your oil can, which lubed all the roller chain on the farm equipment, and your bike chain so you could go faster and out pace your brother. I don’t ever recall using metal cans, we were a Shell oil family and the cans were some sort of paper board with metal lids. Definitely simpler times. I found two Shell oil gl*** bottles about 18 inches tall between the studs when we tore the old garage down.

 

I have a few quarts of engine oil and type f trans fluid. Being Canadian they’re in imperial quarts. They’re m***ive cans!

 

Its been a long time. Here's the last can I have.

 

There’s a roll of the thick brown paper in our shop that came from my Grandpa’s shop . He was a welder at Conoco refinery in Ponca . It came from the oil can making plant at the refinery. He made gaskets , drew out designs for things he welded up at his home shop . We have used it the same way .

 

Posting this pic for @Okie Pete of his big oil can.

 

That is the exact one I have hanging in the garage, yellow vinyl/plastic covered and well used...it's usefulness long past but can't bear to part with it.

 

Late 80s early 90s around here I was still selling them at the gas station in high school. You're hard pressed to get cans around here anymore that are cheap enough to use. I do have a couple of trans fluid.....but I did buy a bulk of oil years ago (buy 2 cases get another free, plus they were crazy discounted) and poured them in my old lubester. All the oil changes for the old cars work off of that.

 

And THAT is caedboard!

Ben

 

The one memory I have of oil cans is from the early 80s when I worked at a shell station...I had the rear end torn apart on a chevy van and for some reason the night attendant thought the spider gears were junk and tossed em. I went dumpster diving the next morning and when I was digging through the trash my right ring finger slipped inside the hole in an oil can....when I squeezed down it cut it to the bone. That attendant didn't come near me for a month.

 

I don't remember the date, but I remember the experience. I had just purchased a new oil spout to open the cardboard sided tin cover quarts of oil. I had to buy a new one because I though the old was was getting dull, The oil change before then the cardboard started crushing before the spout would pierce the can.
With the new oil spout in hand, I thought I was ready for the 5 quarts I needed to put in the car after the oil change. I was wrong! The first quart worked great. The second quart took a bit of pressure to pierce the lid, but then it worked OK. The process went down hill from there. That last quart poked a hole in the top, then crushed the sides and dumped most of that last quart on the driveway!
Fortunately, I still had most of a case of oil quarts left. I rounded up an old beer can opener to put the last quart in the car, after I cleaned up the mess from that fifth quart.
I was told that I must have gotten an "old case" of the cardboard sided oil quarts. I threw away the oil spouts. All the rest of that case and any other cardboard sided oil quart I encountered, I used the beer can opener, I was not going to take a chance on another crushed can.

I for one was more then happy to see the plastic bottles arrive. That above case of the cardboard side oil quarts was the last 24 quart case of oil I bought, until the full cases of plastic bottles arrived.

 

Church key and a funnnel. Made the least amount of mess.

 

Slip joint or channel lock plyers. Just had to get the angle right so it would punch the top and not the side. Also worked on beer and soda cans Matter of fact that is where I first learned it..

 

Still have one of the spouts, but been since mid-80s for any use. I still have one full can of Pennzoil GT Performance 20W-50 oil in the cardboard can. Just for collection now.