| Draining the engine oil is a bit of a chore with F-types. Not only is it awkward having to loosen the oil pick-up union but "sod's law" (as I often encounter) dictates that a leak of some kind will afterwards develop where there was none before! I had heard that the boaties, those with inboard motors in particular, cleverly drain their oil through the dipstick hole. I have long thought of giving this a try.
Firstly I purchased an approx 250mm length of approx 5.5mm OD (I think that the sizes are actually imperial) very thin-walled brass tube, available (if nowhere else) at hobby shops which sell model railway parts/accessories. This goes down the dipstick hole quite neatly with a couple inches sticking out. Then I bought a little pump designed to be driven by an electric drill and connected this to the brass tube with some flexible plastic tubing -- the result was absolute failure as the pump could not draw any oil up at all!
Then I purchased a (reasonably expensive) pump with 12 volt motor and accessories specifically designed to draw oil through the dipstick hole and again this was not satisfactory. It did manage to very slowly suck some oil up but I estimate that it would take an hour or more to empty the sump and even in the ten minutes or so that I had it running the pump and the rather small battery leads were getting quite warm. Then I did what I probably should have done in the first place and consulted a nearby large boating and accessories place.
Apparently the 'Boaties' have given up the "powered" pump idea and instead use hand-operated suction pumps of varying degrees of sophistication (and price). Even though rather laborious, it was one of these which gave me the best results. Be sure, however, to choose a relatively good one (say, one specifically designed for the job) as the action of drawing oil up such a small diameter tube can prompt the ingress of air either at the pump internal seals or at the joints of the brass and the plastic tubing.
As a final comment, it is possible to use the brass/plastic tube assembly to siphon oil from the sump, I tried it and it works but I would estimate that it would take as much as 24 hours (!) and the advantage of draining the oil when warm would be lost.
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