Our First Oil Change

Our new (to us) trawler has overall been VERY well maintained, however she was in need of an oil change ASAP as it had not been done since January of 2009.  (It should be done once a year).  So we went to Kragen for oil filters.  Which they did not have and they sent us to a different Kragen.  Then we had to figure out how much oil we needed.  And go to Kragen for oil (and a BIG box of disposable shop wipes).  Then we had to borrow an extractor to get the oil out of the motors.  And then we were intimidated by the fancy electric oil extractor we borrowed so we borrowed a simpler manual one.  Then we were ready to get to it.  Oh except then we borrowed a five gallon bucket so we could transfer the oil from the extractor to the bucket so we only had to make ONE trip to the used oil shed, not four (each time we filled the extractor).

Ok, SO, the event itself...  We have two engines, so when you drop down into the engine room from the hatches in the center of the saloon floor you are standing between the two gleaming blue beauties.  The engines are identical to each other, so what you are looking at on the left side of the right engine is up against a fuel tank on the left engine.  And vice versa.  Basically, only one side of each engine is accessible.  The manufacturer WAS nice enough to put both dipsticks towards the middle.  The engine extractor goes into the dipstick hole and sucks all the oil out through it....

BUT FIRST!  The oil must be warmed.  This is to make it flow more easily AND to hopefully stir up any particles and "what not" and suspend them so they will also be extracted.  Of course the obvious way to warm your oil is to run your motors and what better thing to do while your motors are running than GO SOMEWHERE in the boat????  Since we only have a 9 gallon holding tank, the most obvious place for us to go was over to the pump out station to pump out the holding tank!  Once we were done there, and heck, since the motors WERE running and all, we took the boat out on the bay for a brief spin and to give me some driving practice.  By the time we got back we had done SUCH a good job warming up the oil, engines and engine room we had to take a break and go have lunch while it all cooled down a bit...

Ok BACK TO IT.  So, we have everything assembled, but of course word had gotten around we were changing our oil on the new boat so we got some onlookers.  One of them was nice enough to hop down in the engine room with Matt so I only had to sit in a chair in the saloon and hand them things as requested, or make trips out to other boats to borrow things (oil filter wrench, sharpie to date the new filters).  Also the person helping's wife came by and gave me some pointers on the stove, as she has the same one... 

"We" got all the oil out of engine number one and our friend set about filling it with nice fresh oil.  I was handing him the oil (by the gallon) and he was pouring it in.  After about a gallon and a half it occurred to him that my husband COULD go ahead and remove the oil from the second engine while we were filling the first.  :)  The first engine took 2 and a half gallons of oil and then was reading full on the dipstick. 

After "we" got all the oil out of the second engine, the gal was showing me the stove and all the sudden our smoke detectors went off.  They are all wirelessly linked together so when one goes off they all go off.  The beauty of this is if a fire (or CO) leak starts in the engine room it will set off ALL the alarms right away and hopefully alert everyone more quickly.  These things are so loud we attracted quite a crowd.  The alarms first said "smoke detected, evacuate" then "CO detected, evacuate" --what the heck were those guys doing in the engine room??? Come to find out Matt had bonked his head on the "test" button in the process of trying to shimmy around to the oil filter on the motor with the outboard filter.  Well, they definitely all work! 

Wouldn't you know it, the oil filter that was EASY to get to didn't leak a drop of oil when he unscrewed it but the one that required crazy Cirque de Soliel-esque contortions of course had oil gushing out the bottom of it.  *Tsk* so typical of all things boat related.  :)

Our friend filled the second engine with oil by himself, putting in the same amount as he had in the first one, and then he said the dipstick was showing overfull.  He held up the half empty gallon and said, see, I put in the same amount.  (If you are thinking this through, he put two and a half gallons in the first one, and had a half gallon left over.  How does he STILL have a half gallon left over????  You see what happened here right???)  He seemed mystified that one engine held more oil than the other.  It was time for cocktail hour on his boat by then and he had guests gathering already so we sent him on his way without pointing out he'd put a half gallon more oil in the second engine than the first.  Hey, he spent an hour helping us, we were NOT going to complain.  We removed the extra oil with the handy extractor! 

After we had everything cleaned up and put away we realized we should have changed the oil in the generator while we were at it.  Oh well, there is always next weekend!