Sucking Oil out of a Perkins Marine Engine

[neilpride]

Originally Posted by MV-Romnya

Thanks all - 2.5 Gallons around 9 litres

Hey wait, sorry im not clear in my previous post, i have a perkins 4236, he use 2,5 gallons of oil, i sugest you to take at least 3 gallons of oil, and fill the engine with oil until the oil REACH THE TOP MARK OF THE OIL DIPSTICK ,i dont know exactly the sump oil capacity of the 4108.
Cheers.

[MV-Romnya]

Thanks NeilPride you guys are all a great help - it's like having a motor mechanic "On-Line" - MVR

[Mike OReilly]

We typically retrieve and replace about 4 liters from our 4108 during an oil change -- a bit more if you replace the filter, which we do every other change.

[MV-Romnya]

Thanks Mike that is great to know - MVR

[onestepcsy37]

and here's something that might be better to know about the 4-108.

one day i was idly looking through my perkins engine manual and i saw a picture of my engine with a HAND PUMP fitted to it. now i know i don't have a hand pump. been pumping through the dipstick for years. but i go looking anyway. and what i find is, not the hand pump, but the plate that covers the hole where the OPTIONAL hand pump would have been fitted.

on my engine it's on the side where alternator, manual lift pump, oil cooler lines and engine fuel filter are found. it's a small steel plate, about two inches by 3/4 inch, with two nuts holding it on to two studs. back off the two nuts and pry it away and you'll find a 1/2 inch hole that will allow you to put a BIG hose into the pan and really suck up that oil. i cut a gasket to put between the plate and the engine to keep it from possibly leaking. been using that ever since.

by the way, my 4-108 holds about a gallon (four litres) when i change both oil and filter. i change both every 100 hours, although the manual says 150 hours or 6 months.

[MV-Romnya]

You little beauty - thanks a heap onestepcsy37 - so that what the thing is on that side of the Motor is - I will have a closer look when i get down to the boat next - thanks folks - you must be wondering why I can't ask the previous owner? - he is overseas for 6 months in the Jungles of Thailand - k

[svHyLyte]

Our 1986 era 4-108 has a hand pump on the starboard side of the engine which is shown as standard equipment in our owner's manual. One can attach a 1/2" diameter tube to the spout and with that pump out roughly 4 quarts of oil from the engine sump by hand without much difficulty. For the little bit that remains, I have modified an inexpensive plastic gas can. I bored out the vent fitting on the gas can to take a 1/4" diameter plastic pipe that extends to the bottom of the can. A length of flexible tubing can be attached to that and inserted into the dip-stick tube. One can then use one's shop vac on the extended fill spount of the fuel can to pull a vacuum in the can and suction out the remaining oil in the engine sump. (With a modified 3 gallon fuel can, one could likely dispense with the use of the hand pump on the motor though I do not.) The foregoing approach makes oil changes relatively painless and seems to minimize the mess.

FWIW...

[onestepcsy37]

svhylyte -

my perkins 4-108 is a 1979 model. maybe in the ensuing years they decided to add the pump as standard equipment on marine engines.....

[Blue Stocking]

About a year back, Good Old Boat had an excellent contribution from a guy who had fitted a pump to a Yanmar. First class job.

[John A]

Afer you've extracted all the oil that you can using which ever method you chose, sacrifice a quart of new oil by adding it to your engine and letting it settle and then pump the additional oil out.

The old oil will float on top of the newer oil.

[onestepcsy37]

and here's another free tidbit from the perkins workshop manual (and you thought that us old people had nothing to do with our time).

apparently the oil cooler is unnecessary. it was fitted to most, if not all, 4-108's. but it is only needed if the engine is run in 'continuous severe service' such as heavy industrial applications. nice to know that, if you're oil cooler heat exchanger goes you can just plumb around it and move on.

if anyone needs the exact wording from the workshop manual i will dig it up and post it....

[gts1544]

We have two Perkins 4-108's of the 80's vintage in 2 different boats and they both have built in oil extraction pumps with "T" handles on the starboard side of the engine behind the alternator with a hose mounted vertically near the front of the engine compartment for the waste oil exhaust. They are standard installations with the transmission aft of the engine. We use Shell Rotella diesel oil for the change on 100 hour intervals at the even 100 hour points on the hourmeter. Makes remembering when to change the oil & filter easier. We are in the Caribbean so we concur with a 40 wt or multi viscosity with 40 wt at the high end. gts1544 / George

[btrayfors]

The 4-108 takes just about 5 quarts (1.25 gallons) of oil, not 2.5 gallons.

This includes the oil for the filter.

Be very wary of changing oil via the suction method. As someone noted, you don't get all the oil out this way and, over time, sludge can develop in the crankcase. I had a TERRIBLE problem with this. After doing battle numerous times, I bit the bullet and:

1. Cleaned out the crankcase via the oil drain plug, probes, multiple oil changes -- very messy job; and

2. Fitted an electric oil changer which attaches to a fitting which screws into the oil drain plug...permanently. Changing oil now is a cinch: takes only a few minutes and no mess. And, almost all the oil gets changed...very little residual.

Bill

[MV-Romnya]

Thanks onestepcsy 37, in another thread I posted about my Perkins 4.108 over heating and manual etc state that the oil goes to the heat exchanger and now I see that this is not necessary - mine does not it appears to be plumbed around - can you please elaborate a bit more on why this is not necessary ?? thanks MVR

[onestepcsy37]

mv-romnya

the manual says that the while the oil cooler is fitted to all (or most) 4-108 engines it was found that it was unnecessary except for engines in 'severe service', highly unlikely for a marine engine. one of these days i'll go hunting through the manual and post the actual wording.