Been changing my own oil for years and never knew or did this

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When refilling oil, remove dipstick to provide adequate venting.
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I always do it ; I read it in either my Haynes or Bentley repair manual.

I also remove the oil fill cap for additional venting.
 
quote:

When refilling oil, remove dipstick to provide adequate venting.

Why?

Air pressure from the crankcase does not ventilate past the piston rings or into the PCV system?
 
I've always done that to help vent it to drain, along with the fill cap, and I've never bothered to put it back in until after I fill the oil.
 
I've never removed the dipstick or the cap when draining. I don't bother removing the dipstick with refilling either, and I've never actually heard of anyone else doing it. Been changing my own oil for 10 years and I've never had a single problem.
 
The only way to refill my auto trans after a pan drain is via the dipstick tube. A funnel with a section of fuel line hose works well.
 
If your car/truck is powered by a Nissan/Infiniti VQ35 (probably same for a VQ40 engine too), you MUST NOT LEAVE THE DIPSTICK OUT WHEN FILLING WITH OIL!

The VQ is a very nice engine, overall, but its designers really forked up this part of the design. The dipstick has no guiding tube -- you must reach the floppy stick down into the dark and thread it into a little hole on the side of the block. That little hole, which could have been put darned near anywhere, was placed directly below the oil filler opening, which of course, is up on the cam/valve cover.

When you add oil with the stick out, it proceeds to spew out of the little hole, making an awful mess.

Could it be worse??? Yes, of course - most of the spilled oil ends up on, you guessed it -- the exhaust!
 
Oh yeah, one more gripe: when you leave the stick IN, preventing the oil from gushing out on the exhaust, it all drains down to the pan over and/or around the stick itself, making it darned near impossible to get a good reading off the stick for some time. If you pull the stick shortly after adding that last quart, as most of us expect to do, you find that about lower 3/4 of the stick is liberally coated in oil, making reading it simply impossible.
 
I always remove the fill cap when draining, I figured it was kinda like punching an extra hole in the top of a juice can. Not sure if it helps, I've just always done that.
 
In the older cars the fill cap was vented so it would act already as a vent. Now, with my 88 Honda, I can see that the hose that runs from the valve/rocker arm cover to the air cleaner housing would act as a vent in the same manner, because it just has a little bit of filter material in the way, maybe a dried up leaf or 2.

If there truly needed to be a vent, the oil would not drain out in a thick stream, it would glug out like an oil bottle, worse, really because the engine can't flex like the oil bottle does.
Think about that!
 
quote:

Originally posted by oilyriser:
Has anyone ever refilled through the dipstick hole?

On a BMW twin motorcycle, at least those sold in the 1970s, the port into the engine for the dipstick is threaded and is also the place where oil is added to the engine.
 
quote:

Originally posted by Pablo:

quote:

When refilling oil, remove dipstick to provide adequate venting.

I'm struggling with this one. Why?


I found this on Amsoil site when looking at the product and refill capacities on my '05 Explorer.
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