This is mostly for the benefit of the next owner but here’s what is involved with doing an oil change on the Westsail 28’s 1977 Volvo Penta MD11C Marine Diesel.

The biggest hassle is finding the frigging oil. I must have called 20 places before finding the ever elusive Chevron Delo 400 SEA 20 – which David (the previous owner) said was very important. Covich & Williams has this oil – they’re at 5219 Shilshole Ave NW, Seattle, WA – (206) 784-0171‎.

You’ll need 3 quarts of oil (I think – it’s kind of hard to tell with new oil – but that’s what the manual (pdf) said) as well as a Fram PH16 oil filter (they sell those at Shucks). You’ll also need lots of paper towels.

David kept the oil pump and filter wrench in the space to the right of this picture in a tupperware container… it’s still there – seems as good a place as any to keep it.

The dipstick assembly is two parts – the dipstick and the screen it screws into. It can be a bit tricky to just remove the dipstick so I use the deck key (the thing you use to remove the water, diesel, sewage caps on deck) to help hold the base while unscrewing the dipstick. To change the oil though – remove both.

Next you just pump the oil out… takes about a minute.

Then you can remove the oil filter. A lot of oil will still be in the filter so make sure to put down a lot of paper towels to keep the oil from going in your bilge.

Then just put 3 quarts of new oil in and a new oil filter. Pretty straight forward.