Really basic oil change question

[gregt]

Hopefully any A4 veteran can answer this dumb question. I am a new A4 owner and doing my first oil change. From looking at the manuals and various pictures on this site, there are two "oil filler" locations, the oil filler / breather above the flywheel and a square oil filler cap with a metal clip near the dipstick. Where should the fresh oil be added?

[CalebD]

You are going to need a funnel with a gooseneck to get the oil into the engine easily without making a mess. I always fill the oil into the 'breather' hole that has the mushroom shaped cap on it that is back towards the transmission. The hole is large enough to accept the gooseneck whereas the dipstick hole is quite small.
You are also going to want to get a 12V electric oil (Shur-flo?) pump to drain the old oil if you dont already have one. It takes my electric pump about 20 minutes to pump out approx 3-1/2 pints of oil and doing this manually would take even more time. Once on land I can empty the oil into the now empty oil containers using my idling car as the 12V source and this goes even faster than using my boat's deep cycle batteries.

[tenders]

I find the "Topsider" pump to be very effective as long as the oil is a little bit warm.

You pump a vacuum out of the tank manually (very easy) and the vacuum pulls the oil out of the engine through the dipstick tube.

It's available lots of places including this one:

http://www.boatersworld.com/product/369210117.htm

[CalebD]

And at that price the Top-Sider is about half the price of the Shur-Flo.

[gregt]

Thanks Guys! I bought a pump that is run off an electric drill which looks like it will be convenient for me as I can just run it off my cordless drill.

Back to the "oil in" issue - I am assuming that the location that you add the new oil is the 3/4" "oil drain" on the port side coming out of the oil pan.

[Chad.Lawie]

Hey greg, I'm in the same boat as you, so thanks for asking the question.

Caleb, you say "fill the oil into the 'breather' hole that has the mushroom shaped cap on it that is back towards the transmission."

The only mushroom shaped thing I see is towards the front of the engine, by the Flywheel. The manual labels it as the "oil filler." When you say transmission do you mean the reversing gear?

I've got a manual oil pump from napa. looks like i'm going to be pumping for a while...

[Chad.Lawie]

Damn oil!

ok. So I sucked the old stuff out. it took me like 10 minutes... it would have been faster but I had to keep shifting the suction tube around too keep it in the bottom of the pan where it would get the oil.

so that all went swell, I started to refill, got through two quarts, realized I some how managed to get the wrong oil weight... 10w-40. so, do I get to practice changing oil again? or will I be safe leaving in the 10W-40.

My engine patiently awaits your response, and the rest of it's oil.

chad

[gregt]

Chad.

That advice on the oil filler location confused me too. The thing that is most "mushroom shaped" is the oil breather-filler cap on the front of the engine above the flywheel. There is an access on the oil pan on the port side between the fuel pump and carbuerator that the manual calls the "oil drain" which is where you can pump out the oil. It has a small threaded bolt-like cap. So I'm confused about the advice to use a "mushroom shaped cap that is back towards the transmission". This doesn't make any sense.

Re your oil question - with my basic understanding of oil, I can't imagine that using 10W40 oil would be fatal. If you put in the rest of the oil, run the engine for a while to warm it up and change the oil again to 30 weight it would be fine.

Greg

[Kelly]

Maybe this picture will help. The arrow shows where you can add oil on a late model A4. The mushroom shaped cap is removed in this photo.

Kelly

[gregt]

Thanks Kelly. That answers my original question re confirming that this is indeed the correct oil fill location.

[tenders]

Some engines, including mine (a V-drive) and evidently Caleb's, have an additional oil fill location on the coil side of the engine, opposite the one you've identified on the flywheel side.

In this photo, it isn't pictured but it would be on the flat plate below the letter "M" in "Manifold Drain Plug" on the right-hand side:

http://www.geocities.com/atomfour/P06Port.GIF

[Jesse Delanoy]

The rectangular flat plate in the location you describe, that covers the reversing gear assembly, can be removed and oil can be added here as well. Before I discovered the oil drain port on the port side of the crankcase, this is where I used to insert my hand pump tube to pump out old oil during oil changes, as suggested by the previous owner.

[gregt]

I just found a copy of the reversing gear transmission manual on the Pearson Vanguard site that shows a mushroom-shaped oil filler cap. My engine doesn't have this filler location. There appears to be quite a diversity of features on A4s, even for something as simple as oil filler caps.

http://www.pearsonvanguard.homestead.com/files/index2.htm

[baileyem]

oil filler location

Gregt

You may have an early model A4 that has the oil filler just behind and to the left of ( viewed from the flywheel end) the distributer. It is a rectangular, flip top cap, and I believe it says 'oil' on it. Flip it up, and add oil SLOWLY, as it will not allow rapid filling.

Mike

[CalebD]

Sorry about the mushroom shaped confusion

Atomic 4 engines were a work in progress by Universal. Not only are there early and late model engines, there are also hybrids with attributes of each and probably some unique modifications thrown in along the way depending on when your engine was made or modified by a PO.
I wish my oil fill was in front by the flywheel as pictured but mine is located just forward of the transmission (behind the cylindars) and has a mushroom shaped cap. If I run the engine with the cap off then oil drops get spit out of this opening all around my engine compartment. I can only assume that this is the result of the gears spinning in the oil pan.
I should have stated that your mileage may vary.