Amateur auto engineering

[Matt Evans]

Are you kidding me ?  The ATQ motor has the nicest oil filter arrangement
I've ever worked with.  The NG isn't bad either.

The thing that impresses me most about the B platform cars is the oil filter
placement.  Maybe I've just gotten really lucky.  The oil filter assembly on
my M5, while a magnificent piece of engineering, is much more work and much
dirtier than the ATQ.  On a stock ride height passat, I do a complete
oil+filter change without even jacking up the car. I don't see how it can
get much better than that.

Disclaimer: none of my vehilces have a plastic undertray installed :)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: quattro-bounces at audifans.com 
> [mailto:quattro-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of Lyle Seaman
> Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2005 5:31 PM
> To: quattro at audifans.com
> Subject: Amateur auto engineering
> 
> I don't think that a water pump would have very much of an 
> idle cycle.  The
> cylinder walls get awfully hot, awfully fast.  Of course, one 
> might use the
> oil for cooling instead, since that pump needs to run anyway. 
>  But I guess
> oil doesn't have the heat-carrying capacity of water?  
> 
> What I would like to see, is a crankcase that can be drained without
> crawling underneath and removing a nut four times per year.  
> Can't they just
> run a steel line to some convenient location and put a ball 
> valve on the end
> of it?  I guess the engine moves around, so there might be 
> problems with
> fatigue over time :(  I had a couple of ball valves that replaced the
> crankcase drain nuts on a couple of older cars, but the 
> company that made
> them seems to have gone bust.   Likewise for the oil filter.  
> Seems that
> only a very rare minority of the cars I've seen could be 
> serviced without
> frustration.  The filter on my Prelude was this "" far from 
> some structural
> member or other, and you couldn't get more than about 10 
> degrees of rotation
> with a strap wrench, which wasn't enough to get the wrench to tighten
> without slipping.  I'm not even going to say anything about 
> the A8.  Why
> can't they put the oil filter right up near the oil cooler?
> 
> 
> 
> 
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