If it’s an automatic, IIRC, you need to go in from the top. I know on a standard it should be quite easy to get to from the bottom. That car with an automatic and AC (which I believe is standard on the new models), is quite a pain to get to the oil filter. Once you get it off I believe there is only on good path to get it out, but I’ve only had this relayed from my uncle.
this thread frieghtens me…
Billy Rubin: Sorry about that, I changed part of your name from a sandwich to a bird. I am noted far and wide for my ability to make typos.
Why is that, gato?
- women tooling with cars?
- I’m too dumb to find the oil drain plug?
- people are nice enough to help me?
- the voices in your head are telling you to post this?
- you didn’t notice in the OP where I said this IS a lame rant?
There are two MAJOR red flags here–an eight-sided bolt, and two of them. In almost 30 years of professional automotive experience on import and domestic cars, I have NEVER seen an eight-sided oil pan drain plug. And two oil drain plugs are used only in a few special cases, as mentioned above. I have never seen two oil drains on a 4-cylinder engine. Automatic transmission (or transaxle) drain plugs are virtually unheard of on domestic cars. I don’t know of any manual transmission drain plugs that resemble engine oil drain plugs. Eight-sided fasteners are extremely rare on automobiles.
When you get back to this project, please be ABSOLUTELY SURE that you’re going after the right thing. The time and trouble to get a clear, accurate manual or a knowledgeable consultant pale compared to the potential time and trouble to rectify an unintended mess caused by removing the wrong fastener. If, for example, you remove an engine coolant block drain plug, you’ll get a flood of antifreeze all over the place.
The drain plug will screw into the oil pan. This is a sheet-metal part that covers almost all of the bottom of the engine, maybe 4 to 8 inches deep. The plug is typically on the bottom of the pan, or on the side just above the bottom. In other words, it should be at what is an obvious low point, within an inch of the very bottommost reaches of the engine.
In between 11/16 and 3/4 is 18mm. 3/4" is almost exactly 19mm (within a few thousandths of an inch), and 11/16 is pretty close to 17mm–an 11/16 wrench would be a loose but usually workable fit on a 17mm fastener. On this engine, I would expect the oil drain plug to be 13mm or 15mm.
Just to echo what Gary T said. In 35 years of dinking with cars on a professional basis I have never seen an eight sided fastner. EVER. There is a fastner called an external torx which is six sided but the sides aren’t flat, they are concave. From the head they look like a 6 pointed star. Takes a Torx socket to remove, nothing else will do. BTW an E-20 Torx is about 18.41mm point to point. Here is a link with a pictureTorx go about half way down the page look for bolts.
Two other things First go the library and look at their Chiltons or Motors manuals. They will be in the reference section. probably won’t be able to check it out, but they is why copy machines were invented.
Lastly and most important
I don’t care what kind of jack it is don’t climb under the freakin car without proper support!
[soap box]
Look I understand that your head may fit under the car when it is at rest, but you are missing a few things here.
First if the car falls it won’t stop at normal ride height, the springs will compress, if not to full compression, for damn sure very close to it. Is your head less than 3" thick? It will be. Also when Mr. Murphy shows up, he does so with a vengence. Chances are when the car falls off the jack you will be on your side trying to pull a bolt loose. How wide are your shoulders? See comment above.
I own a commercial floor jack (probably way better than the one you have) I will not under any condition climb under a car unless there are jack stands (or ramps) supporting the car AND I have shook, wiggled, bumped, pushed, and generaly done every thing in my power to try and make the car fall. If it does not then and only then will I put my precious melon under the car. [Yeah I know it ain’t much to look at but I have become attached to it]
I have seen hydraulic failures, and I have seen cars fall off jacks. Please, please don’t take the chance!
[/ soap box]
hehe! Thanks, and no offense either intended or taken. Nobody can spell my IRL name either, i’ve come to accept it.
And I do really suspect you know what the oil pan is, and I doubt you would endanger your life, but Rick and Gary make very valid points. Be careful. One method of urban oilchanging I’ve used with great success is to park the car with one side on the curb. Most are at least ten inches. With two wheels solidly on the curb(or the ground beneath the curb) and two wheels solidly on the road or driveway, you have all the room you need. And it’s way safer than ramps or jackstands, which I’ve seen fail as well.
B.
well, I hope you’re all happy , I just climbed under my car to recheck (no, not directly under, no jack was involved. Guys, in the future, I WILL USE THE JACK STANDS! and attempt to make the car fall over if you say so, the car can take it)
My cold numbed and frustration clouded hands read wrong, and it IS a six-sided bolt. I looked for anything else in that area that could possibly be the oil drain plug and couldn’t find a thing… the other bolts on that piece of metal obviously hold it on. There is the similar flat spot on the other side of the car, and the bolt there looks exactly the same, but I can’t explain that. If I can get in for an oil change tonite I am going to make them climb under there and SHOW me which bolt it is just because I wanna know.
I know you guys are only yelling about me not using jack stands because you care 
(right!? you do, doncha?)
Billy Rubin, that curb idea sounds great. Perhaps I’ll try it after I move somewhere with curbs 
(toobloodyearlyinthemorninggrumblecoffee)
P.S. A cousin of mine, apparantly a very nice man (his name was Ricky), is someone I’d never had the pleasure of meeting because he was crushed to death under a vehicle he was working on. So I do understand, secondhand at least, the importance of proper support while working on a vehicle.
This gal’s 98 GT has one drain plug.
This gal has also had a car fall on her - twice - which working on it*. Once with two jackstands (the jackstand broke :eek: ). Now I use jackstands, the jack, spare rims, and sometimes a couple of large blocks of wood.
PS - I knew it wasn’t an 8-sided bolt on that engine, but saw this thread too late.
- Good thing I’m relatively small, or I would have been smooshed.
hey wow it only took Anthracite’s post. Oh, and Anthracite your’s is only a 4.6, not a 5.0.
As for cars that have an internal filter, the Honda Prelude, mid-late 80s had one. My father’s SO had one and he hated changing the thing.
Huh? Every Honda I’ve seen, including my personal '86 Prelude, had a spin-on oil filter. Are we talking the same language here? (Internal does not mean inconveniently located.)
The only internal oil filter placements I can recall are on the old VW beetles (a screen type), and on some GM 4-cylinder engines where the oil filter (a pleated paper type) is located inside the oil pan.
Yeeees, I know that. The 86 is a “Fox” body Mustang, and mine is an SN95. Except for a special edition the very first year of the SN95, all engines generally sold to the public have been the 4.6 (the 5.4 made it into a special Cobra, that didn’t get around much, in 1999 I think).
The 2003 Cobra is the 32-valve 4.6 (albeit now cast iron block, since the aluminum block is not overly strong), with the same supercharger that the Lightning truck has on it - for a total of 390 hp/390 ft-lbf of torque. But it’s still going to be a 4.6, and not a 4.9 like some sites were reporting last year.
What do you mean above, where you say “hey wow, it only took Anthracite’s post”?
I’m not too sure if this will help you at all, but it’s the only photo I could find. It’s of 3 different type of Quad 4 oilpans. Your 2.4 engine is basically the same as a Quad 4 from older cars. The one I would look at is the one on the far right. Yours should be something similar to that.
http://www.babcox.com/editorial/ar/elements/49935j.gif
There’s the direct link to the picture, and here’s a link to the webpage…it’s all about quad 4’s (quite the nice page)