Inboard Oil Change

Hey everyone, I need your help.
Getting a little tired of spending $130 (CAD) for an oil change on our Moomba. I'd like to start doing it myself. How tough is this job? When I was a kid, I worked at a garage doing, you guessed it...oil changes.

I've figured I'll have to buy a fake-a-lake to warm the engine up to temperature before I remove the oil, but what do I use to draw the oil out of the motor? I've read that I can't just pull the drain plug like we do in cars. Apparently I'm supposed to draw it out of the dipstick tube?

Mechanical Wakeworlders, fire away. Thanks.

The best way to hook water (IMO) is to make an adapter to connect to the v-drive were the raw water intake connects. Fake-a-lakes are messy to work with. Have to lay down in the water to get it in and out. I couldn't get it in properly due to the trailer cross frame. You can also buy a Flush Pro that provides a quick connect inside the boat.

For draining the oil Moomba has a drain hose that is connected to the oil drain plug on the bottom of the oil pan. You will find it laying on the floor of the bilge. It is long enough to stick through the rear drain plug and drain into an oil catch pan. It drains slow even when engine is warm. I like to let mine drain all night if possible.

The Moomba should have an extended hose from the bottom of the oilpan that you can stick down through the thru hull at the front of the motor to drain. If not, buy a suction can from West Marine or Overtons. Easy.

I just pull the intake hose off the through hull and stick the garden hose in it. Takes 20 secs to put it back and screw the clip up.

If you dont have a hose off the oilpan then you can put some thin tube down the dipstick tube and use gravity syphon it out. I did this on my mates boat and took about 6 hours to drain. A pump will be quicker but will cost you $40 or so.

That's great. Thanks very much for all your help. I'll do it tonight.

Well guys, this isn't exactly going as planned. I need your help.

Went out today and bought the oil stated in the Moomba owners manual - SAE 20W50. Came back to the boat tonight and noticed it says: 'use only SAE 15W40' on the oil cap. So, which is it? What are you guys using in your Indmar 5.7 L 310 hp carb. motors?

Also, could not, for the life of me find the PH53 Fram oil filter anywhere (as stated in the owners manual). So, I bought the equilivalant filter for Chevrolet 5.7 L auto/truck engines. Should this be Ok?

Please help.

I would say use what it states on the oil cap. That would be my first choice. The 5.7 chevy filter should be the same. Match it up with the old one to be sure. Some filters that fit a certain size engine will be longer or shorter depending on room, but the threads and seal should be the same. Choose the longest filter you have room for.

Thanks Sparky. Yep, the seal and the threads, and the outside dimensions on the automotive oil filter are exactly the same. Hopefully this will be Ok, but I'll call Indmar tomorrow.

Also, about the oil, the Indmar owners manual recommends the 20W50 for all engines. I'm thinking that oil caps can be changed, but it's definately the original motor, so I might trust the owners manual a little more.

I did my own last week. I have a fake a lake and also a pump that hooks up to a drill that costs about $25.00 us. Obiviously park on a level surface and hook up the fake a lake to warm the oil. Run it for a while so the oil gets real warm so there is no chance of it cooling down like what happened to me. Feed the hose down the dipstick tube and start the drill and pump it out. Then remove and replace the oil filter and fill it back up with oil. It was pretty easy. You'll have no problem if you used to do oil changes on cars. I went to my local boat mechanic for the oil and oil filter and advice. He said there is a hose that disconnects and you can run it out the bottom drain hole of the boat. I couldn't find it so I did it this way.

look for pennzoil diesel 15w40 at NAPA or whatever store carries penn products. The service rating of this oil matches the Marine 15w40. check it out. I went to Lowes and got a pump that fits a drill motor and plumbed it to the end of the hose off the drain pan and pump the oil out. takes no time at all.

yeah i did the same i have a 04 LSV Moomba, and put the suction pump in the hose so it drained alot faster, and i use regular 15w40 motor oil and just goto napa or where ever and tell them the model of filter, and they give you the napa size of that filter.

How you get the oil out of the engine may vary engine to engine, boat to boat. What generally doesn't work on a boat is pulling the plug on the oil pan simply because you can't get to it and have no clearance for a catch pan underneath.

On some engine installations (generally an option when you buy the boat) they will install a drain line into the normal pan plug. This hose is simply capped off and tied off somewhere next to the engine. To drain the oil you can either stuff the hose out a bilge drain hole or suck it out with a pump.

If you don't have the drain hose then the next option is to suck it out the dip stick. Most (but not all) marine engines have modified the dip stick tube so that it sticks all the way down into the oil pan. You can slip a hose over the top of the dip stick tube and suck it out with a pump.

A few installations (generally the case of an automotive engine installed in a boat) require that you slip a very small tube down the inside of the dipstick tube. I feel sorry for the people who have this.

The oil pumps/flow better when it is warm. You don't want it too hot because you can end up burning yourself or dropping the oil filter that was too hot to hold on to. I generally change the oil at the end of a day's use, when the engine is still warm from normal use. I just take the oil change equipment with me and add 10 minutes to the boat put away task.

As for the proper oil to use: there is so much bunk and old wive's tales about oil that the truth is lost in the noise.

Here is the bottom line on oil:

"oil" as it is pumped out of the ground is pretty much a sludge and not suitable for anything. It gets refined into lubricating oil, diesel fuel, gasoline or a number of different products for making plastics and other petroleum based products.

A simple refined oil made a reasonable lubricant but it had numerous drawbacks, especially its ability to resist breakdown from contamination. Not all crude oil is the same, and the quality of the oil was mainly dependant on the source of the crude.

Many years ago they figured out that they could add certain chemicals to the oil and improve its characteristics. Once that was done it didn't matter if the oil came from Pennsylvania, one of the Quaker states, or elsewhere.

The visosity of the oil remains a major issue. The colder it is, the thicker the oil gets. This is true of all oils, even "multi-weight". To get the deisred viscosity at 110 degrees during the summer you might need to use 40 weight. Come Decemeber, however, you might not get that oil to pour out of the can!

A multi-weight oil reduces the amount of viscosity change. The greater the two numbers are, the less the viscosity changes. Thus, a 5w-50 doesn't thin out as much as a 20w-40.

It comes at a price, however. A 20w-40 doesn't require nearly as much additives as a 5w-50. The additives are fragile, and can be broken down by contamination or overheating. You are taking a risk by running the more radical multi-weights.

What do you need for your boat? Hell, a straight 30 weight would be fine. I can pretty much guarantee that the water temperature isn't going to drop below 32 degrees! You don't need to worry about the pour point at minus 20 degrees! Likewise, the lake isn't likely to rise up above 90 degrees or so. The air might get hotter, but the engine sees the lake temperature.

If I were to choose between a 15w-40 or 20w-50 I would choose the 20w-50 because it is only a spread of 20 where the 15w-40 is a spread of 25.