Westerbeke sump drain hose replacement

[Reighnman]

So came down to a bilge of fresh oil yesterday.  Seems the drain hose is leaking at the connection to the pan. Since it swivels I'm not sure how to tighten it. The manuals offer no guidance.  Anyone run into this before? I see replacement kits for $115.

[wes]

They all seem to leak to some extent. Charlie Deisher replaced his, I replaced just the fiber washers, neither seemed to 100% solve the problem. Generally it's just an occasional drip. If you have a pan full of oil I'd advise replacement with the Universal/Westerbeke kit which includes hose, sump plug and washers.

The hose is swaged onto a thick round hollow disk through which the sump plug bolt passes. It is meant to swivel so there's no way to tighten it. There's a picture on p. 4 of the Universal M12 parts manual, available in the document library area of the Westerbeke web site.

To remove you just put a wrench on the hex head of the sump plug bolt (19mm I think) and unscrew. Drain all your oil out first. When you install the new one, be careful not to cross thread it or you'll be ordering a new oil pan next.

Wes

[Reighnman]

Do you see any reason I couldn't remove the sump hose and just bolt it closed  like a car for the season? Access to the bolt is "reasonable on the 25. Thank you that detailed response! I get one responses when I call the local westerbeke dealer.

[wes]

Absolutely you could do that, if you're ok changing the oil by draining it into a shallow pan or sucking it out through the dipstick hole. I may do the same if my drip gets worse.

The sump bolt is pretty long to allow for the extra 1/2" thickness of the hose fitting. You might want to replace it with a conventional automotive sump plug (metric, probably) or at least make sure it doesn't bump into some internal engine part when you screw it all the way in.

Wes

[moonlight]

On the service end of things, I ROUTINELY delete these crappy bottom of oil pan hoses on almost every engine.  They are way too prone to failure (always at the most inopportune time), and we almost always pump out of the dipstick anyway.  I also MEASURE (to the 1/8th of an inch) the recovered oil, do a bit of math, and make sure we got it all...