Oil Filter Removal Tips

You have to be careful doing that or you can get the target piston at bdc !

I often hold an engine at compression using compressed air, useful diagnostic and to hold valves shut while you remove the springs and change the seals

Compressed air? I've done it before now by getting the piston to bdc then feeding a ball of string into the cylinder through the plug hole... took bloody ages, but worked.

Things you do when you've got hours to kill and an easy job to do but the motor factors are shut and you can't find the tool you need.

This might make you laugh - I did!

Hammer:

Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as

a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the

object we are trying to hit.

Mechanic's Knife:

Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons

delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing

convertible tops or tonneau covers.

Electric Hand Drill:

Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you

die of old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting holes

in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the

rear axle.

Hacksaw:

One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It

transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more

you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

Vice-Grips:

Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can

also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

Oxy-acetylene Torch:

Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you

keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What wife would

think to look in _there_?) because you can never remember to buy lighter

fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell.

Zippo Lighter:

See oxy-acetylene torch.

Whitworth Sockets:

Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are

now used mainly for hiding six-month old Salems from the sort of person who

would throw them away for no good reason.

Drill Press:

A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar

stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your

beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over

the bench grinder.

Wire Wheel:

Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the

workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and

hard-earned guitar calouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Django

Reinhardt".

Hydraulic Floor Jack:

Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you have installed a

set of Ford Motorsports lowered road springs, trapping the jack handle

firmly under the front air dam.

Eight-Foot Long Douglas Fir 2X4:

Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.

Tweezers:

A tool for removing wood splinters.

Phone:

Tool for calling your neighbour Chris to see if he has another hydraulic

floor jack.

Snap-On Gasket Scraper:

Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used

mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

E-Z Out Bolt and Stud Extractor:

A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any

known drill bit.

Timing Light:

A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease build-up on crankshaft

pulleys.

Two-Ton Hydraulic Engine Hoist:

A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and

hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.

Craftsman 1/2 x 16-inch Screwdriver:

A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately

machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

Battery Electrolyte Tester:

A handy tool for transferring sulphuric acid from car battery to the

inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a

doornail, just as you thought.

Aviation Metal Snips:

See Hacksaw.

Trouble Light:

The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is

a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise

found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to

consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer

shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the

Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

Phillips Screwdriver:

Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and

splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round

off Phillips screw heads.

Air Compressor:

A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200

miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a

Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last

tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds them

off.

I like your style.

Philip

That's the method I use, but I use 8-10mm dia cord. A fairly short length is all that's needed. Takes less than a minute to feed a foot or so into the bore. Mike.

Well, they (and concrete boots) easily get rid of a particularly stubborn, unwanted wife - so an oil filter should be no problem.

Thus spake Tim.. ( snipped-for-privacy@spam.btinternet.com) unto the assembled multitudes:

I've always used a chain wrench and it has always worked.... eventually. You have to get the chain tension and lever position "just so", and that takes several attempts and a fair amount of thinking. But it's a nice feeling when you get it right and feel the filter start to turn. It does of course help if the filter is easily accessible, and hasn't been overtightened in the first place.

I've found that the oil filter pliers Halfords sell are brilliant at undoing stuck filters. I've not had much luck with the chain type either, when I tried with one of those I had to resort to hammering in a screwdriver. This didn't seem to work either so my mate gave it loads of welly and simultaneously the filter started to turn and the screwdriver handle snapped off, causing him to punch something unforgiving really hard. Side-splittingly funny at the time (for both of us) :)

Peter.