How to change 4-stroke oil without making a mess??

cgmiller

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Decided to save myself a few bucks and changed the oil in my F150's myself. Spent $120 on 12 quarts of oil (damn!) and $60 on yamah filters. Draining oil was relatively easy and with the crank case empty and the filter upside down..should be no problem right..wroong..filter was still half full of oil which spilled out into the engine cowling...fork...mopped as much as I could and wiped up what was leaking out of the lower cowling....for the 2nd engine I packed oil absorbent rags around the filter housing before removing the filter, but still split oil ...is there anyway to do that...should I have poked a hole in the filter to drain the oil out??? boat is done and ready to be covered for the winter..which really sucks....
 

billfish33

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not sure how your filters are positioned on your motors ?
but I changed my oil for the 1st time when we winterized,and I use an oil filter drain tray,and found it to be extremely helpful.
mine is made from aluminum,I'm posting this one just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.


the aluminum one is thin and can be trimmed to slide under the filter before you spin it off.
I didn't spill a drop.

EDIT:
Just remembered where I got mine !
http://jwmachineshop.com/products/jw_4s ... g_pan.html
 

Legend

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I have had similar mess issues and have tried different methods without much success - not sure why the engines were designed with the filt.ers in the worst possible location. Tried putting a small freezer bag on the filter - and then loosened the filter - this helped a little but still a big mess.
Tried drilling a hole in the filter and sucking the oil out with the oil pump - did not do much lots of oil still dripped out.
Last change I got a bunch of oil absorbing pads and placed them in position beneath the filters - still a mess but I think this was the least messy of all options -
I asked my dealer if there was a trick to doing this and he said there is no easy way around it
I like the idea of the previous poster and would love to know if it works with the yamaha 4 strokes?
 

cgmiller

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Billfish,

It looks like your filter on the Suzuki is sitting on it's side..on the Yahama they are tilted upside down so when you loosen the filter, the oil inside spills out with no way to prevent it...as far as I can see...I also tried to absorb some of the oil from the fitting and it kept refilling itself..not sure where it was coming from as I had drained the crank case first....OH well...I am good until next year and the oil has 3 months to weep out of the engine cowlings....
 

eppem

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Change the filters a few times and you will get better at not making too much of a mess. I read somewhere about the freezer bag trick and it works great. Loosen the filter a tad and then work a freezer bag around the filter and underneath the fittings. Tilt the engine up or over the the side you are working on so the oil runs out and down into to baggy. I can take the filter off my cousins F115 and my F225s with very little mess now.

Good luck!
 

billfish33

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are they upside-down with the engine fully tilted up ? , can you use the steering to your advantage along with the tilt ?
surprised they made it like that if you can't manipulate it with tilt/steer ?
 

duconce

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Sims sells drain pain for 16 dollars, works great. You may want to buy your filters there also, @22ea.
 

cgmiller

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Dave,

That is a great video but the filters on my engines are not tilted, they are straight up and down. Maybe if I tilted the engines all the way up I could drain the oil out using a drain chute like that..I have a whole year to figure out how to do it better...thanks for the info...
 

Legend

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I ordered the drain tray from the machine shop link above on New Years and got it yesterday. Simple but great idea. Does anyone know where to buy the oil filter wrench that they used in the YouTube video - did a search but can't find one for a Yamaha.