Changing oil with engs out
 

I was thinking abt placing a propane/infra-red type heater next to the oil pans to heat the oil before draining.
Any reason I shouldn't do this? The fuel sys is dry.

The reason we like to fire the engine and warm the oil a little before changing is to stir up the dirty particulates that have fallen out of suspension and are now laying on the bottom of the oil pan . Heating the pan will not accomplish that task . Does your oil look dirty , if not just go ahead and change it . Some of us change it well before it looks carbon black . Cheating once in a while for reasons such as yours imo is not going to make it or break it .

Heating the oil is totally unnecessary unless it is the dead of winter and you are trying to suck thick cold oil through the dipstick. It should be plenty thin enough to drain during the warm months, and besides, you already have the engines out so just pull the drain plug. If you want to get a little extra sludge off the bottom of the sump spray some brake cleaner in the drain hole with the little plastic tube and let it drain out real well.

All the prev oil changes on these engines have been thru the remote oil drain valves the prev owner installed. It works but takes a looong time to drain. Like almost an hr to drain 8 qts, and that's with hot oil.

Thought it would be nice to have a rapid oil drain and hopefully remove any particulate the prev drainings didn't remove.

Wouldn't hot oil drain faster and have a better chance of carrying out any particles?



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f the engines are out, just let the oil drain overnight.

Got one of the engs on the overhead hoist today. There were just too many rubber hoses in the way to try heating the oil pan.
Decided to skip the heat and just drain over a magnet and a screen for a couple of hrs. The drain plug is on the bottom of the pan towards the rear so I just elevated the front of the eng a bit. Didn't see anything alarming.

Thx for the input :)

Starboard eng going in tomorrow!