[Dusty Boots]

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The otherweek, the weather had warmed up a bit, enough that I thought I'd wander down to my unheated storage room and start readying my ride for the upcoming season. I have a 10 x 15 storage room holding all my woodworking equipment and I had to get 'creative' in order to get the bike in there.

I was lazy when I stored her at the end of last riding season and didn't do an oil change as I usually do, before layin her up. I open the storage room's roll up door to see my 'steed' waiting patiently for me.

I fired her up and let her come up to operating temps and then shut her off to let her cool down a bit, before changing the oil. In the meanwhile, I put a scissors jack with a piece of 1x2 on top of the jack,under the front of the engine, so I could pull the front wheel to get a new E3 installed on it. By that time the bike had cooled enough to dump the oil. It was getting on in the day and a buddy had dropped by, so I decided to just let her drain out good and come back in a day or two and finish it off. When I returned a few days later, I wasn't really dressed to work on the bike, as I was just dropping off some supplies. Ithought I'd just unscrew the filter and change it, then top her back up with the new oil. Simple job, right.

I dropped the oil then took off the old filter and struggled down beside the bike to install the new filter, tighten as much as possible by handand top her up with some fresh life giving Delo 400 15w40. I fired her up and let run for a few minutes, shut her down to check oil level. Perfect. Fire bike back up again to drain the full tank a bit for an upcoming low fuel level sensor install. Runs fine for 30 seconds and then there is this sickening 'gushing' sound. I immediately shut the bike off and there is oil all underneath the front of the bike, below the filter. What the He _ _!!! :?:?



After I get all the oil that is now flowingall overthe floor somewhat cleaned up,(wouldn't you know it, this happens as my buddy shows up and jokingly asks if he should call for theHAZ-MAT team :cooldevil I get around to looking up at the offending oil filter and see that the O-ring is bulging out to one side :X

I remove said oil filter and discover to my amazement that there are 2 O-rings on it. One very deformed, hardened O-ring and the good one from the new filter. A quick check of the old filter confirms my suspicions where the offending O-ring came from. How it stayed put while I blindly wiped the filter mounting area, I don't know, but it did and it was a cause for a major PITA situation. I was just thankful that this happened here and now, instead of me out riding her and not being able to hear the gushing oil and causing some major damage to the engine!



Moral - check your old filter for it's O-ring still being intact, before installing the new one!


Dusty

 

[picasso]

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That ain 't as stupid as what I did one time ,,,, I forgot to put the oil plug back in and put 3 qts in before i noticed !!!!
I just called it a "flush" and got some more oil .

 

[k1w1t1m]

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picasso wrote:

That ain 't as stupid as what I did one time ,,,, I forgot to put the oil plug back in and put 3 qts in before i noticed !!!!
I just called it a "flush" and got some more oil .

Been there, done that myself.

 

[The Lake]

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Did the same thing with a Honda Civic once!

Chuck

 

[Hatchetman]

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You guy's are just having a bad day, My neighbor is the real idiot! His riding lawn mower broke down last fall so I loaned him my brand new John deere LA 115.

I had it full of fuel, parked it at his house & gave him the key before going to work.

This guy is a mechanic...

Anyways, I get home & he calls me to say that my tractor would only run for 30 seconds & now wont start. I went over to check it out & finally narrowed the problem down to gas in the oil.:shock:

Dummy filled the crank case to the top with gas & almost turned himself into a suicide bomber.

I pushed it home & flushed the system 3 times before it didnt smell like gas any more. Than once more a week later:hovering:

Mabey Im the dummy,He was diagnosed with dementia this spring.

 

[wingd]

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I did the same thing last sping. 4qts of spectro golden 4 blend all over my garage floor. My bike was sitting on a nice piece of left over carpet from my new house. Well needless to say what a mess. $25 down the drain or on the floor. Looked at the filter and sure as **** the O ring was pinched out on one side of the filter housing. I've changed the oil on my wing dozens of times in the last 28 yrs and that was a first for me and for damm sure the last!!! So I ran to wally world and picked up 4 qts of good old castrol GTX 10w 40 $11.00 and we were back in business.

 

[bkm]

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Don't feel bad ... it has happened to lots of folks includingme ... and my son, whom I told ... but inevtiably he had to learn the hard way. The story >>



My son is starting to earn some money around house by doing some extra chores. I've been letting him change the oil on all our vehicles. One particular time lately he was chanign our Dodge Intrepid but couldn't find the oil wrench (he lost it ... so I let him go buy a new one). Then he changed the filter ... and got the big oil spill for the same reason as yours. Afterward he had to go get some oil dry (pay for it) & clean up the oil (it's amazing how oil spreads out on finished concrete).... then he got to payfor replacement oil.When it was all over he had invested about 2 to 3 hours of a Saturday afternoon and ended up owing me money. On the bright side he learned a valuable lesson and probably won't ever make this mistake again ... maybe avoid blowing an engine up.

 

[SB in SC]

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Yep Dusty,thats an important lesson. I grew working in the family service station business. First job I was trained to do (after cleaning tools) was oil changes. The old guy who worked for us had been working in garages since Model T's were new.:shock: First lesson he taught me was to make sure the oil filter mount was clean and did not have the old o-ring still attached. He told me "No need for both of us to learn the hard way!" He had left the old o-ring on a car once. Caused all the oil to leak out and the owner toasted the engine. Expensive mistake.



Glad you caught it in the shop!

 

[jimsjinx]

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The last, and I mean very last time Wally-World changed my wife's oil in her Explorer, the guy put the drain plug in with an impact wrench, and the oil pan on them is plastic!!!! It took every thing I had in me to get that plug out without cracking the pan. jimsjinx

 

[rgbeard]

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Did that to a 67 Jaguar a few years ago.

Kitty Litter to the rescue.

<<<<-- in fact it was this 67 Jag.

 

[BlueWinger]

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Dusty...thanks for the "Learning Experience"...and I'm glad it turned out ok for your ride.......easy mistake to make, and a costly one.

With "MY" luck, that would have happened to me, only I probably would not have caught it til it was too late. :shock:

 

[sandiegobrass]

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Hey Dusty... glad it wasn't worse.. I learned that one the hard way too, only it was after a half-hour on the water then five quarts of oil into the bilge of my boat about 1/2 mile off shore ...:waving:think I would choose your mess.... Jim

 

[Silverfox]

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This is ridiculous!! Who in their right mind would do something like leave the drain plug out and then start filling the bike/car/ lawnmower/boat/aeroplane with oil..... no sir, not me, total madness!!!! :shock::cooldevil::gunhead::doh::rollingeyes:



Probably the same sort of silly people who would leave the drain tray under the bike and go to put the plug back in and drop it into 3.5 ltrs of very hot old oil and have to end up fishing it out by hand.

(Oooops,must be time for my meds, been there done that!!!!:action

 

[Kit Carson]

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A flashlight has became standard in my tool tray. Tis called going blind, seems to happen once you get past age 25.

Some idiot put the coil wires on a Shadow on the wrong coil, they kept trying to figure out why it would not start. Must be the kill switch, yea thats what it is.

:cheeky1::cheeky1: Kit

 

[detdrbuzzard]

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i hear that old harley and brit bike riders are good at cleaning up oil

 

[Silverfox]

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detdrbuzzard wrote:

i hear that old harley and brit bike riders are good at cleaning up oil

Certainly true of Brit bikes mate, if it isn't leaving it's "mark" on the ground there is something seriously wrong with a Brit bike!!!!!!:shock::cheeky1::cheeky1:

 

[Big Cahuna]

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Or your just out of oil.,

 

[Nightrider1]

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That's not as bad as leaving the sight glass plug off after you have installed new belts. Something like this will always happen to us. Its just Murphy at his best. He is always around somewhere, just waiting.
Nighrrider1

 

[SpiderBob]

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Well, heck being how we are doing true confessions, always complete the job at once. I went away for a while came back but the PLUG in, filled it with oil, started it and a stream of oil was shooting out. I didn't put the filter on. No more said.:baffled:

 

[Broke Winger]

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Well, I guess if one is gonna talk about stupid...

Doing an oil change on the Wing, get all the stuff together all the tools oil new filter ready to go. Slide the drain pan under and pull the plug. And pure green coolant comes pouring out. Convinced that the motor is horribly damaged I let it all drain out and start the tear down to pull the motor out. Only to realize I pulled the wrong friggin plug.