Hi Miles,
Have you considered an oil filter relocator kit? Summit Racing and a few
others sell them. They allow you to mount the oil filter up to 3-4 feet away
and you pick up a few more ounces of oil capacity. Plus you can orient the
filter in any direction that you want.
Chris
'01 QuadCab, 5.9, blue/silver
(and a 4-string tenor banjo player)
In a message dated 2/7/02 4:41:15 AM, moliver@linux.lgi.com writes:
<< I've owned Dodges in one form or another since 1976 and so far I've been
happy with them.
But am I the only one who wonders what the designers have been smoking when
they come up with Oil filter location on any of their engine designs??
Why can't they change the filter pickup locations so that you don't wind up
with an mess every time you remove the oil filter?
We've owned 2 Dodge Caravans, a 1992 (with a transmission from HELL) and a
2000. Both with the 3.3 litre V6.
The engine bay design has a wiring harness that runs directly UNDER the oil
filter location and you CANNOT spin off the filter without slinging oil on
that harness no matter what you do. So you end up with an oily mess that you
do your best to clean up but it still winds up dripping for periods
afterwards. I have to lay down cardboard to catch the drippings on the
garage floor while it is at home, to say nothing of the oily mess on the
harness that is a DIRT MAGNET. Even when they have changed it at the
dealership they still get the same crapola and they dont take the care I do
to clean up the mess so it gets even worse. I'm not a clean freak but I hate
having a motor caked with dirt captured by an oily film on the motor.
The Filter location on my '98 Dakota with the 3.9L V6 wasn't much better.
You'd still get oil everywhere when removing the filter.
To say nothing of trying to add oil to the new filter itself to benefit
starting the motor after the change (something I've always tried to do) .
You can only fill it part way because otherwise you'd be spilling new oil
instead of old all over.
With the new design of the 4.7L motor in my 2002 quad cab I had expectations
that somehow they could alleviate the problems of removing the filter and
slinging oil everywhere. but as I recall from my youth.. John Belushi
saying..
BUUUUUUT NOOOOOOOO---OOOOOOOOOOOO
I hit the 3000 mile mark on my 2002 and got my oil filter out to start
changing and worked that silly little porthole door open to get to the
filter and find that the I get the SAME SLOPPY MESS as I always have when
removing the filter. You remove it and oil drips down across the cross
member and around the big plastic front cover to give you the same oily mess
that I've gotten for the last 20 years. I'm at my wits end. Its a lousy
design an I wonder why when they had the chance in desgining a new motor
that they didn't take stuff like this into consideration.
I guess I should now try and resort to tactics like using my cordless drill
and puncturing the old filter and letting it drain out the before removing
it or stuffing rags up that porthole all around to catch the dripping mess.
A hell of a lot more work.
It seems that they have somehow found some sadistic glee in locating the
filters in these locations when they could have made better choices in
location.
Again I ask...
What are the Dodge designers Smoking??
Miles D. Oliver
"Bluegrass, Finger Pickin' good"
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