Pm 1236 Oil Drain

Quick question for the precision Mathews crew, What metric pipe thread are the drain plugs? I made a bit of a mess when I removed the bottom oil drain plug and would like to make a oil drain out of pipe for the next maintainence interval. I imagine I'm not the only one who's been through this lol

It is a 16mm fine thread

change gear said:

I imagine I'm not the only one who's been through this lol

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Not the only one...I made a huge mess, cleaned it up, promptly knocked over my bucket, making an even more impressive mess!

I ended up sucking the old gear box oil out with a hand held pump, Saved a mess I'm betting

One trick I use when draining the oil is to get a plastic sheet protector or other flexible plastic sheet, and tape (clear plastic type) it to the machine just under the drain outlet. You can fold the other end to make a U or tube to direct the oil to a funnel/container. I used it to direct the oil to a funnel with tubing going down to a 1 gallon empty milk container. I have kicked over enough things, that I put the cap on the container before I store it away. I use the old headstock oil to lubricate gears in my Norton gearbox (one shot) and as cutting oil.

mksj said:

One trick I use when draining the oil is to get a plastic sheet protector or other flexible plastic sheet, and tape (clear plastic type) it to the machine just under the drain outlet. You can fold the other end to make a U or tube to direct the oil to a funnel/container.

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Along the same line I use aluminum foil and duct tape to provide oil guidance. What. I happened to have on hand.

I second the hand pump for keeping things clean. They are $7 - $18 at Walmart depending on which size you want and I would expect auto parts outlets to carry them too. The $7 unit is setup to work with 1 qt bottles so, just add some tubing to the pickup to reach the bottom of the headstock. Attwood Gear Lube Pump is the quart bottle unit and the larger Seasense Portable Oil Change Kit includes a 1.5 gal capacity waste jug and likely will be much faster in draining the higher capacity headstocks. You can also add a petcock to the drain hole if your design allows clearance so that you can drain it similar to a car radiator....a length a tube temporarily stuck on the petcock nipple simplifies getting the waste oil to where you desire.