Going back to the original Lidl pump I think something has been missed! The flow rate is quoted at 0.2 litres/min so by my reckoning that pump is going to be hammering away for 25 minutes to drain 5 litres, also the pick up pipe looks too big to go in the dipstick hole, and isnt temp resistant. Replacing it with a smaller bore temp resistant pipe will reduce the flow rate even further. I would put the £11.99 towards a decent vac one, I have this one:
Well if you’ve got to get under the car to change the filter anyway then why not just do it the way the factory intended. It’s a lot quicker to use the drain plug… Even more so for the next poor owner who tries to get the drain plug undone only to find it seized solid.
It’s true modern oils are much better than the older ones, and are less prone to sludge and other deposits coming out of suspension. Depends on the age of your engine and what previous owners have done.
Me, I’ll continue doing it the way the factory intended, thanks
At 0.2 lt per min it is going to take something like 17 mins to do 3,5 litres in a Mk1/2. Assume it attaches to the dipstick tube so not sure it would get all the oil. Think I will stick to using the drain plug.
Several MX5 specialist garages are quite open in saying they use pumps, as it frees up space on the lifts. Tests have shown the residual oil left by a top down oil change is nominal; less than 3 tea spoons was found in one test. You don’t need to get under the car to remove the oil filter; you remove it from the top. If the car has an oil cooler, thats always going to retain oil no matter which way you do the change.
But not all pumps are equal.
Well I bought mine.
The tube that goes down the dipstick tube is 6mm in diameter and I can’t see why the tubing could be extended as it seems like standard tubing that you could buy from an aquarium shop.
I won’t have to change my oil until June so I’ll be using it then.
The particles your are talking about in the engine oil are mostly carbon (burnt fuel) which in its self is a lubricant.
Most of which you will find if you cut through the crankshaft to open the big end journals, the carbon is flung outwards due to centrifugal force (rotation of the crankshaft) and builds up inside these journals and is held there. When overly full of carbon your engine will more than likely suffer low oil pressure, so keep changing the oil/filter at recommended intervals and use a premium fuel to help reduce the (sludge)carbon.
I’ve built/rebuilt a lot of engines over the years and I don’t follow your big end journal explanation at all. The journals of the crank are solid and simply cross drilled from main to big end to feed lubrication from one to the other. If there is a lot of sludge in an old engine, that’s been run on poor quality or mineral oils for many years, then it can block the smaller oil feed passages to cam bearings and the like leading to other problems.
Engines suffer low oil pressure for a number of reasons, but with high mileage engines it’s typically due to bearing wear increasing the clearance and allowing more oil to escape between the bearing and rotating surface, or the oil pump clearances have increased and it is not pumping efficiently. With everything else being equal (pump capacity/condition and pressure relief valve) it is the restriction created by the clearance between the bearing and rotating surface which controls the oil pressure in an engine.
When oil pressure starts to drop due to wear no amount of oil changes will prevent it decreasing further over a period of time.
Having spent all my working life working on high end engines 350 up to 650 bhp also, I have found the c/shafts to be hollow and always found the b/ends hollow which allows for the build up of carbon within the journals some of the cheaper end i.e small car engines do not have this, but one way to remove some the so called sludge from the engine was to fit a spinner filter, all so to ensure the engine reaches temperature quickly so as to burn off and wetness that devlopes within the engine.
Not having a Mazda engine in bits i did not know the crankshaft was a solid type. i was merely suggesting it could be found there and that the “sludge” found was not sludge but carbon so we have both learn’t something today. And possibly Mazda can lighten the engine weight by using a crankshaft of this open journal. Oh by the way the journal was not left open but was covered by core plugs either of a press fit or by bolts dished steel cups and copper washers.
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Someone on the Triumph TR forum bought a pump at Lidl the other day.
He got the engine up to Temperature and tried the Lidl pump.
After 10 minutes it had only lifted a litre of engine oil.
OK the TR was using 20W/50 but in reality it will not make that much of a difference at higher temps.
The pump should not be run for more than 30 minutes so it is not up to spec for 20W/50.
I would in this case say another item for the “good ideas box”.
So if you need some thing to pump engine or gear oil spend some more on a professional piece of kit.
I’ve used a similar type (a Pela 6000) for years and it works fine. The extractor tube goes right down the dipstick tube till you feel and hear it hit the bottom of the sump so I have no concerns about its leaving sludge behind.
By the way, vacuum extractors are popular in the sailing world as boat engines often have no means of reaching the sump to drain it. So you may find the same models a bit cheaper from chandlers shops than from motor factors.
High end engines are a very, very different beast, especially with billet cranks where the pins can be drilled to lighten them significantly. But that’s really in the realm of high end race/drag engines, and maybe a few of the very high end/exclusive production cars. Our race bike has a billet crank with drilled pins, but I doubt that will see enough use for sludge of any description to build up, especially with castor oil and methanol…
Virtually every production engine with cast or forged cranks will have solid journals. It’s not a financial viability to have hollow cranks in most production cars, yet