ChooChooSnakeMan
Seaman
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2023
- Messages
- 68
Hi All, I hope you all are doing well and are either already on the water for this season or getting very close. I recently de-winterized by VP 8.1 Gi-J and changed the fluids and filters. I thought sharing my experience along with a couple of questions might help someone else. I followed the VP manual for winterizing my engine (no anti-freeze, just remove 4 drains and disconnect 4 hoses). It went well and to de-winterize I just reversed the process. Some of the hoses can be a pain to push fully on but I got it done. I changed the engine oil and filter as well as the fuel filter and the outdrive oil. I feared the outdrive oil change because I knew both props had to come off (DPS-A). I purchased the VP OEM prop wrench tool and it was a breeze. The props came off very easy as the prop shaft was very well greased. I drained the lube and filled it up (full on the dip stick) with the VP lube. That all went very well. Next I changed the fuel filter and that was easy, I made sure to put some clean oil on the fuel filter gasket. Now is where the trouble began. I planned to suck the oil out of the dip stick tube. I had a 12v electric oil extractor with the right size hoses which I used many times to remove the oil from a Yamaha 250 SHO outboard. I ran the smaller tube down the dip stick making sure it went past where the bottom of the dip stick was. I started the pump and a solid stream of oil came out but only at first, after a short amount of time it seemed to just be pulling a light coating of oil along the inside of the tube. In an hour it only pulled 2 quarts. I knew something was not right. I googled my problem and learned that I needed to seal the dip stick tube by using a female garden hose to tube connector. Thus there would not be any suction leakage around the inside of the dip stick tube. I had a devil of a time finding what I needed but I was able to get a brass garden hose adapter that had a female 1/2" pipe thread. I then threaded a 1/2" pipe thread to the tube size I needed adapter into the garden hose adapter. I attached my suction hose and was ready to try again. This worked perfectly and I was able to get around 6 1/2 to 7 quarts of old oil out. Lesson learned is that the VP dip stick cavity in the oil pan will not allow enough oil volume unless the whole tube is under a vacuum. I put in 4 quarts of the VP 10W40 synthetic oil and removed the oil filter canister top. I wasn't sure if I should prefill the canister with new oil but I did, filling it up about 3/4 of the way. I then added the new filter cartridge, oiled the oil ring with new oil on the canister top and screwed it on pretty tight. I then filled the engine with new oil until the line was at the top full mark on the dip stick. It took all 8 quarts of oil! So I have two questions. Did I do a bad thing by prefilling the oil filter cannister housing to 3/4 full and even though the oil level shows full (the engine is sitting level, I checked) do you think adding all 2 gallons of oil is overfilled? I appreciate in advance your input.
