Oil catch drum contraption

[JHunter]

So, I pretty much make a mess out of changing my oil. I've tried the giant cookie sheet, the big pans from auto parts stores and once even laid a big plastic sheet out, with the cookie pan and catch pan - still had spills on the concrete. This weekend I tried using my cement mixing tray and it worked like a champ. I then came up with this beauty to let the oil drain from the cement mixing pan - also works like a champ. Sorry for the **** cellphone pics - but I think you'll get the idea. Basically 3 inch PVC across the top connected to a 2 inch piece that screws into the lid of my oil drum. All you have to do is set the lip of the cement pan on the trough, pour it in then once the majority has gone into the trough, spin the T PVC section so the back of the pan faces the wall, secure it so it doesn't tip forward and go to bed while it drains - which is what I'm about to do.









I put little pieces of split hose to keep the edge of the pan from touching the PVC so the oil wouldn't flow over the top and drip down on the floor.

 

[daveroy]

Ingenious!
Bonus points if you can find a way to slope the whole thing to drain to one end.

 

[rkevins]

I like that I may have to rig up something like that for my drain pan too, I run my trucks up on ramps and use heavy plastic tote box but have trouble getting all the oil out and this may help.

 

[JHunter]

daveroy - I was actually just thinking about pouring some epoxy end one end of the T, setting at a slight angle so that as it self-leveled, it would cure and be flush with the center drain and higher on the outside of the T (and doing the same thing on the other end after the first side dried) so that when it was in the oil drum and level it would drain easier to the center down spout. Same could be done if you wanted it to exit from one side I suppose. Something like the below where the red dashed line is the self leveling epoxy. This may be more work than its worth - it seems to work pretty good as is, but doesn't totally drain out of the top of the T because there are parting lines where the pieces of PVC meet and its not sloped - but we're talking about a teaspoons worth of oil left in the T - I might be able to live with that

 

[akdiesel]

Thats a clever design. Nice job.

 

[HOTFR8]

Very neatly done.

 

[MBeaty]

Very clever.

For the slope, you can put the horizontal leg of the PVC in the oven for a little bit and then bend it lightly. The same thing can also be accomplished with a torch, but the risk of burning the surface increases.

 

[mbatarga]

To put a slight bend in pvc pipe, I've used the hot air output from one of those kerosene fueled hotdog construction heaters.