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How often do you drop the engine's sump to clean it out ?


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How often do you drop the engine's sump to clean it out ?  

9 members have voted

  1. 1. For your car and/or motorcycle older than 30 years old - How often do you drop the engine's sump to clean it out ? ..be honest now :)

    • 1. For your car and/or motorcycle older than 30 years old - How often do you drop the engine's sump to clean it out ? ..be honest now :) Never have done, since I bought the vehicle. If and when I change the engine oil - the new is soon black !
      3
    • Only when I first bought the vehicle, or else when the engine was last rebuilt
      4
    • Once every 100,000 miles, or else approximately every ten years
      0
    • Once every 50,000 miles, or else approximately every five years
      1
    • Once every 20,000 miles, or else approximately every other year
      0
    • Every time I change the oil and filter, so that the new oil isn't contaminated with what was in there before.
      1


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I would only clean it when it has to come off .

while its stuck to the sides and bottom its not going anywhere 

and flushing can loosen it and then you pump it all round the bearings

way back in the good old days   guys would flush by adding a lot of paraffin    dont go there !!!!!!!

a while back while getting an MOT the garage had a Corsa diesel in for failed bearings , it was 10 year old and never had a oil change 

the sump was a jelly mould of what was left of the crank and rods ,  a solid jelly mess filled the sump  heck knows how it ever ran 

Pete

 

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1 hour ago, Pete Lewis said:

a while back while getting an MOT the garage had a Corsa diesel in for failed bearings , it was 10 year old and never had a oil change 

the sump was a jelly mould of what was left of the crank and rods ,  a solid jelly mess filled the sump  heck knows how it ever ran

When I was at Rover, our "dealer support" (or idiot re-education) guys were called out to a case where a taxi firm complained of short lifespan of Montego diesel engines. They asked the taxi firm owner about the regular servicing schedule. The question had to be bounced around a fair bit before the answer came - no regular servicing, we just fix things when they break. These Montego taxis were doing 20,000 miles of the worst possible driving conditions and never had an oil change.

However, it was a colleague's Triumph 1500 that, when he bought it, had never had its oil changed, that revealed a sump like you describe.

Mine get regular oil changes but I only clean the sump if it's off for some other reason. All three have had their engines rebuilt in my ownership, albeit two of them were 30 years ago.

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I change the oil and filter regularly and would only clean the sump when it needs to be removed for some other reason.

The sump has never been off my TR6 in 16 years of ownership, but it's had plenty of oil changes, and still runs nicely with good oil pressure.

Nigel

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When I dismantled the car back in 1997 I cleaned the Sump out and partly filled it with oil! when the car went into storage.  When it came out of storage 2019, I removed the Sump again and again partially filled the engine with oil so I could run the engine as it had not run since 1985! which I have now done.  The car is nearly restored and when it goes for MOT I will then remove the sump and clean it and fill it up with new oil!  What a exhausting way too go!!

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5 minutes ago, Pete Lewis said:

3 sump off and no miles   sorry Martyn  you need better tea bags 

why do you feel the sump needs to come off for 3 cleans ...i dare not make an Assumption

think you are in a serious overkill  mode 

Pete 

Agreed. Maybe a hot oil flush to clean the entime engine, but no need to clean the sump again, it should not be gunged up. That tends to be the old, low quality mineral oils. But modern quality oils should have detergents etc in them to keep the engine clean. (NOT good with a mucky sump, it spreads the stuff throgh the engine bit by bit)

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I am definitely in the don`t remove it (just) to clean it "camp". An Engine that is already "out" for other purposes, might get it removed, more to check the state of the rotating parts than for cleaning. Replacing crank seals, for example, it would make sense to do a clean if the sump required removal, (not all need it).

Pete.

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When I recommissioned the Spitfire a few years ago in a fit of energy, enthusiasm, but no sense, I decided to fit a new sump gasket to cure the inevitable oil leak. So armed with rags, spanners, gasket, sealing gunge, I drained the sump and started to pull the bolts holding the sump in place. You all know the situation!!! After pulling all but one of the bolts and supporting the sump I found that the remaining bolt wasn't removable (too long to get out due to the chassis member)..so back they all went with the cry of "oh dear" (or something similar) and went to remove the collective years of oil and miscellaneous crud. So, collective intelligence, what is the easy way to remove that final bolt without pulling out the engine?

 

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1 hour ago, Badwolf said:

what is the easy way to remove that final bolt without pulling out the engine?

I don't recall having that problem. On the six cylinder, you need to undo (one of) the engine mounts and jack it up by a couple of inches to allow the sump to clear the cross-member.

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Ah! Ah!  I think I am doing the last Sump Removal is because of When I got it Started any muck that might have been within the engine would have cleaned out from the top of the engine and fallen down into the Sump?  I suppose I am over doing things as an Oil change should do it?  My Memory isnt what it used to be LOL!

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Only when I wanted to check bearings etc. and engine, 2L Mk1 in a Vitesse, is out of the car. When I inadvertently ran the engine on a mixture of coolant and oil I only drained the mixture and used a new filter and oil, over a thousand miles later so far so good.

Regards

Paul.

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1 hour ago, martyn wright said:

Ah! Ah!  I think I am doing the last Sump Removal is because of When I got it Started any muck that might have been within the engine would have cleaned out from the top of the engine and fallen down into the Sump?  I suppose I am over doing things as an Oil change should do it?  My Memory isn't what it used to be LOL!

It's really not that difficult nor costly to do, and for peace of mind you should do what you're happy with.  If you drain it down, and drop the sump, and find nothing in there - then there's really nothing you've lost.

Personally I wait for five hundred to a thousand miles of running in, and then drop the sump again to clean out the particles from where any new parts and bearings have bedded in.  I'm usually a little horrified by what I then see, but am glad it's no longer inside the engine.    

I also fit a large magnet in the sump (up-cycled magnets from a motorcycle tank bag) and a small drain plug magnet, to hopefully catch most of what was honing in the bores.  I note that Katie's  engine had non.

Pete

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Well!  I dreamt all this the other night!  I cannot carry out any big works as I am still unable to do them due to illness Lol!  altho I was thinking of cutting the wiring from the front to the back as I used connectors and they look a bit bulky So!  I am going to cut, solder and heat rap the wiring? I should be able to do that LOL?  Car is now 6 months behind! (I can always lay down and do it??

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I find this interesting ..and oddly quite encouraging that it's not that I'm particularly unlucky :D

I must admit the feedback is a surprise to me, as this is a (very small) sample of proactive classic car enthusiasts.   I asked exactly the same question on the Autoshite  forum < here > and received a very similar response, except it seems that less persons rebuilt engines ..perhaps because of their often more modern design of cars and known-to-be lower overall mileages.  Of the 17 who anonymously polled 70.6% never cleaned out the sump on their car(s), and 29.6% only did when first buying a vehicle or during an engine rebuild.  (In retrospect I think those would have been better polled as two separate answers).   The 19 who posted replies sometimes dropped the sump or pulled a bottom strainer out ..to check the strainer was clear and the pick-up pipe was OK.  Most others were the "hell no" sort of reply.    

 

My 1940 - 50's Sunbeam motorcycles are wet sump and I've cleaned out the sump of each of the bike I've owned.  And then I clean out the sump again after a rebuild to remove bearing and running-in particles from cylinder bore honing and new bearings. When I was working on these for customers, I'd run their engines in for the first 200 miles and then clean out the sump before handing the bike over to them. On my own bikes I do it around 200 miles and again around after about a thousand miles of running in.  Thereafter at each oil filter change. However I ought to note that those engines have no external oil filter and their designed relied on particles dropping out of suspension and settling below a baffle plate. 

P1310562s.jpg.f1815c739f4230ea626de99b2f43dd86.jpg

^ This is the filter of a 1946 Sunbeam S7, where I've changed the gauze filter to be very much finer than original (here I used the same fine mesh as I use for fuel tank petcocks). And to compensate for its smaller holes (ie., potentially restricted oil flow) I've soldered the mesh on as corrugations ..to quadruple the filter's surface area.  The original gauze was simply a flat sheet.  As you can see there's only 12 nuts to undo and drop the sump on these engines, and that can easily be done with the engine in the frame.  The round grey-donut thing to the left is a magnet which I always fit. The oil's pick-up pipe comes through this. 

The post-1949 Sunbeam motorcycles had a deeper sump and a box with a similarly relatively coarse brass gauze soldered around it for their oil filter.  Again the design was that particles would drop out of suspension and settle in the undisturbed sump below the baffle plate.  Again the sump had to be dropped to wash its mesh out with petrol.  Me being me., I revised the design on my own, and for customers, bikes to instead use a disposable fine-element filter  . . .

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^ This is Pudge's engine (my own daily-rider bike) when I first developed it with a disposable fine-element filter (..from a Skoda Fabia) sandwiched between the sump pan and its baffle plate. Again a large magnet was added to catch ferrous bits (..perhaps particles from the honing of cylinder bores as they were run-in).  As these engines have no external oil ways it was easier to fit a filter inside the sump than to add unsightly plumbing and an external oil filter.  The bike is a 500cc 1953 Sunbeam S8 with OHC and shaft drive .

My Norton Commando 850 Interstate didn't have a sump pan to drop, but the bottom of the crankcase was a rounded and otherwise a deep-V and so its drain plug was where any sludge would collect anyway.  That bike had an external oil filter cartridge en-route to a separate oil tank situated under the rider's seat.  And yes I did also remove the oil tank to clean the sludge out of that.

My BMW K75 motorcycles had filters and strainers in the very bottom of their sump, but by this generation of engine the oil filtration was so much better than on the classics, and with detergent oils there was very little sludge in those engines. 

Conversely my '66 Jaguar 3.8 was an absolute sod, because you either had to lift the engine or drop the front suspension sub-frame, before you could remove the sump.  That only got done once while I owned the car.  But as that was only for two years I guess it was OK. 

My present Triumph TR4A was restored 22 years ago and since I acquired the car, dropping the sump has been on the job list.  Other things have sort of got in the way, but I've done very few miles in her yet.  I had hoped to be driving the car this month but water in the engine oil (due to a corroded core plug) has prompted me to drop the sump now to clean things out. 

P1410823as.jpg.016fbeb707b19dce7e740e8499f762e9.jpg   P1410827s.JPG.6d773f2783978f6ed60a450de64a44ca.JPG

^ after being hung to drain over night this was Katie's  sump.  The creamy-brown colour of emulsified oil has drained away or the moisture has evaporated to leave black sludge.

According to receipts, this sump was most-likely last dropped (..and one might only presume cleaned out) in 2016 when the engine's wet-liner cylinder's figure-of-eight bottom and sump gaskets were replaced (water in the engine then too ! ? ).  The oil filter was changed also, and so one presumes the engine oil was new.   And this ^^  according to the MOT history of recorded mileages is from just 2033 miles.  

 

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^ After cleaning it out, I noted quite deep pitting in the base plate of the sump. This happens because when water and oil are together - the oil will float on top and therefore the bottom of the sump is in water and so will tend to rust (..this can even happen even from atmospheric condensation inside an engine).  I've now power wire brushed that out, redressed the flange ..straightening and flattening its gasket face from where I'd had to hammer (via a wooden block) to get it unstuck, and where inappropriately small washers had pulled the flange in around the bolt holes. I've painted (sealed) the base of the pan and its scored gasket face with POR-15 (fuel tank sealant). This paint when thoroughly cured is really tough (hanging drips from where the chassis was painted with it remain intact even when the car is jacked up on them).  Had I not done so, then I would have been anxious of the rust pits soon becoming pin holes through the sump !

Before I refit it, I'll take a little time to check the sump's screw threads into the bottom of the crankcase are good, to check the crank's end float is not excessive, and to drop the oil pump to check tolerances within that.  I've also bought a set of doubly thick flat washers 8mm ID x 14 OD which will sit flat between the pressed stiffening ridges of the sump's flange.

Please note, I'm only saying what I've done with my own vehicles.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Clearly because of my bikes I've adopted old-school habits.

Pete   

 

 

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I recall a series of articles in Practical Motorist, I think -in the   late sixties anyway .. entitled something like “Things to do at 40,000 miles” listing de-coking cylinder heads, valve grinding rebuilding starters  fitting  new shell bearings,  “ Cords” piston rings overhauling  carbs ,fuel pumps etc.etc. as if they became due at a certain point.

Times were beginning to change..

And as for oil..

Remember this sort of thing (found last week it  still remains half un-used !)

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