Jiffy Lube

Last weekend I took on the annual chore of servicing the engine.  While doing this it occurred to me that this will be the last time it's done annually and from now on will be done according to engine hours.  That's a pretty cool sign that we're getting very close to our goal.

We have a new oil transfer pump that was actually installed last year with the gen-set but I hadn't tried it out until now.  It's a Reverso 3012 with two valves and it can service two separate systems.  You can get them with up to six valves but we only need two.  The pump is mounted in the starboard cockpit locker and has hoses and fittings permanently mounted on the oil pans of the engine and generator.  Each line has two valves, one at the oil pan and another at the bottom of the pump.  There's also another hose running from the top left of the  pump that's about 6' long and is used to transfer old oil out or new oil in.

Here's how it works.  It's best to transfer the old oil when it's warm so it'll flow better.  Run the engine for a bit to get it up to temperature.  Shut it off and let it sit for half an hour to let the oil drain back into the pan.  Open the line valve at the pan and the other one at the pump labeled "engine".  Place the end of the transfer hose in an empty container.  My engine holds 6.5 quarts of oil so I used a couple of empty one gallon oil jugs.  There's a green switch on the right front cover labeled "Fill" "Drain".  Hit drain and it starts pumping out the old oil.  This is just a light duty pump so it's not real fast (2.5 gpm) but it is easy and clean.  The hose is attached to the bottom of the oil pan so I think it's probably more efficient than pumping oil out through the dip stick tube.  After pumping out the old oil I added two quarts of fresh oil and pumped that out too.  I was hoping to flush out more crud and leave clean oil in the line.  At this point I changed the oil filter, only filling it half way with oil since it's mounted horizontally on the side of the engine and filling it all the way would only make a mess.  I don't think it really matters if you do it now or after adding the fresh oil to the engine because the filter is located above the pan and the oil gets pumped up to it.  I decided not to use the Reverso to transfer fresh oil into the engine and just poured it in at the oil port on top of the valve cover.  I was thinking there's probably still plenty of dirty oil in the hose and I didn't want to pump that back into the engine.

When I first tried to use the pump I ran it for a minute or so, waiting for some sign of oil but got nothing.  The pump had been installed by Hinckley Yachts when they put in the genset.  They did a nice job of installing everything but they didn't prime the pump.  The manual doesn't hint at priming the pump either and in fact says the pump is self-priming.  Sorry but this one needed priming.  I poured clean oil into the end of the transfer hose to get some oil down to the impeller.  This took a while because the oil had trouble getting past the air trapped in the hose.  I finally got maybe half a cup of oil down there and it started pumping oil as soon as I fired it up.  The transfer hose is 3/8" and had a 3/8" male pipe thread fitting with a cap to prevent oil leaking out when it was stored away.  Good idea but the 3/8" fitting won't fit inside the opening of a gallon bottle of oil because of the hose clamp.  I could have just removed the hose clamp but instead changed the fitting to a 3/8" hose barb and added a short length of clear 3/8" tubing so I could better see the oil as it's being transferred.  To the end of this I added a cap (minus the clamp) for when it's not being used.

After changing the oil in the engine I replaced the fuel filters and flushed out the glass bowl for the primary filter.  I still need to flush out and replace the coolant for the engine and then take on servicing the gen-set.  At this point I was out of time though because Cheri had the tequila sunrises and cigars ready to go.  A guy can only play with his toys for so long.  Sooner or later ya gotta get down to serious business.