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Clean up on oil draining
Page 136
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Draining a sump need not involve getting yourself and the floor covered in oil. The Fumoto valve can make the whole business cleaner and possibly save money too, writes Colin Sowman
• While servicing a vehicle, why, however, hard you try to avoid it, does the hot oil always run over your hand and up your sleeve? When the plug is on the side of the sump you might stay dean, but the chances are that the lift and the floor will not.
Engine oil needs draining when hot, so that the sediment and other contaminants are also removed. This, however, can lead to severe burns. Published work indicates that while used petrol engine oil is carcinogenic, that from diesel engines is not. However, contact with all used engine oil should be avoided wherever possible — especially repeated and sustained exposure — if problems like dermatitis are to be avoided. The effect of extending oil-drain periods has not yet been assessed regarding any increase in health risk.
Considering that these problems have been around as long as the internal combustion engine itself, it's about time a solution was found. And indeed one company has come up with just such a solution — the Fumoto oil-drain valve.
This device replaces the normal sump plug. When the oil needs draining a small lever is lifted over a retaining step and rotated 90° to open the valve. It's a simple device that saves the fitter getting covered with hot oil, but can it justify the price tag of £19.50 plus value added tax?
In order to find out, we visited John Dee-Shapland, transport and depot manager for the Milk Group of the Cooperative Wholesale Society. Vehicles from his Weston-super-Mare depot deliver fresh milk to London twice (or on occasions three times), a day and that is 480km (300 miles) each trip. When doing such high mileages, oil-drain intervals come round very quickly, so all the vehicles doing this work are fitted with Fumoto valves.
The valves were fitted after a Co-op vehicle from another depot had to have its sump replaced because the thread in the drain-plug hole had stripped. Disruption resulting from unscheduled downtime is expensive. A ruined engine caused by a stripped thread allowing a sump plug to fall out is very expensive and, in Shapland's view, avoidable. "For less than the price of one new sump the whole fleet has been fitted with drain valves," says Shapland.
Controlling the drain speed
Fitter Steve Nigh drove a vehicle over the pit; he is very enthusiastic about the valves as he worked on these trucks before they were installed. You don't get scalding hot oil up your sleeve and the flow is controllable; it's not all or nothing, as is a normal plug, he says.
While the valve hangs down further than on a normal plug, the difference is only very small. Shapland believes that if an obstacle is going to knock the drain valve off, then it will do other damage as well. This is certainly true of the ERF we looked at because the front axle was lower than the valve. When the vehicles are due for replacement the Fumoto valves are removed and replaced with the normal sump plugs (carefully stored since the first oil change). As Shapland is replacing with like vehicles, the valves are then used on the new trucks. So they are is a once and for all purchase (provided the sump threads remain the same) and means that all the trucks from here on will have an oil-drainvalve facility.
One saving, although only small, is tc be made by not needing to renew coppei sealing washers on sump plugs. Not only is this a saving in cash but also in time — there's no going to the stores to get one. In general, however, draining the oil witt the valve is not really any quicker thar using the sump plug.
To counter any possibility of anybod) tampering with the valve and draining the oil overnight, a circlip, like those used or radiator hoses, is used. This stops the lever from being lifted over the step anc so the valve cannot be turned on. Remov• ing the circlip is simple with the right too and it can be reused.
The only problem the fitters encoun tered was when a vehicle was to be ser viced first thing in the morning and the oi was drained while still cold. The hole ii the valve is much smaller than the origina drain and the oil took a very long time tc run out. It's the sort of mistake you onl! make once, says Nigh.