I changed my oil last weekend using an oil extraction pump. It sucks the oil up through the dipstick hole. A big syringe and 2 plastic tubes.
Worked very well. I have heard reports that it can leave sludge in the bottom of the sump but it seemed to suck the sump dry. Made oil change a doddle! As it was an ‘intermediate’ 3-month change I didn’t do filter this time (every 6 months). Next time I am going to undo sump plug and see if it does leave anything in bottom of sump.
Difficult to be exact. Probably about 3.5L judging by amount in old oil container.
I have been checking dipstick and oil still appears to be a nice golden colour a week on, so there can’t have been that much old stuff left in there hopefully.
I use one of these too. Makes an oil change a piece of cake. Needs a bit of patience if the oil’s not warm, though; as the pipe has to be narrow enough to fit down the dipstick tube it can take quite a while to suck all the oil up.
That’s the one I use, or rather the 6 litre version - PELA 6000. I got it cheaper than that by looking for a chandler’s shop on eBay. Boating types all use 'em because you often can’t get to the sump on boat engines, so marine suppliers are a good place to find them cheaply.
If there is swarf on the drain plug being magnetic it should stay on there and also you may have bigger issues than just how the oil is changed. Any physical contaminates should anyway be taken by the oil filter. Finally, if the oil is sucked out when warm the remaining contaminates will be mixed with the oil and removed together.
Hadn’t heard of these, but had been thinking of starting doing my own servicing to keep costs of running MX5 down, and this would certainly make life easier. Also like to do jobs on 5, as part of the ‘hobby’.
Anyway, seems to get a reasonable number of thumbs up, on here and other forums, so thought I’d get one and give it a go. Pela 6000 gets good reviews, and holds 6 litres, so plenty of capacity for MX5, and would be okay for our other cars. Did a bit of a search for best price on Pela 6000 last night, and found a company called Mailspeed Marine doing them for £38 inc P&P, which I’ve ordered. I’ll let you know how I get on with it.
Just need to decide what oil to buy now - so back to the forums
When still at school in 1968, I got the bus into Glasgow city centre on a Saturday morning to watch the scruitineering for the Scottish Ray and saw Roger Clark!!!
There was a very well spoken technician there from Shell, with a white coat and a Shell badge on the breast pocket. He was a real adult. The white coat was spotless.
He offered all the cars in the rally an oil change and he had a unit operated by electricity that pumped the old oil out into some large tank and from another tank pumped in new Shell oil.
