When I saw the topic of this thread, the first thing that came to mind was our "Prez" and his teleprompter........then I realized this was not the political forum.

I was always told to check it cold, with the truck on a level surface.
But usually I'll check it warm, after leting it sit for 5 minutes.

Either way, with 3 gallons of oil, minor differences on the dipstick level should not be a problem.

 

Up date: I again checked the time for a cold start to get in indication on the oil pressure guage. Time 3 to 4 seconds. The same with the engine warm after waiting about 45 minutes. But a restart with about a 2 minute wait, the oil pressure was starting up after 1 second or less. This would indicate that the oil was slowly draining from the filter.

 

You would probably never notice the outage on 12 quarts of oil.

 

Warm oil also moves easier, thus faster pressure. You also need to consider the entire block drains. My filter is always within .5" of the top, even after sitting overnight and my cold/warm oil pressure is similar to yours.

Where do you have your psi sender?

I did the math in post #31, %5 change or .6 quarts. The "safe" range on the dipstick is 2 quarts, so cold to warm is a 30% change on the safe range.. I think you can see that!

 

I have considered the oil galleys and know that they will drain. This could be the differance in the times. I almost always drain the oil within a few minutes after I shut the engine down. I do let it drain for a while. Once or twice I have waited a little longer and noticed that the filter did not spill any oil when removed.

My sender is attached to the top of the filter base with a 24" hydrolic hose.

I assume that you are a chopper pilot. I flew the UH-1H in Viet Nam with A Troop, 3/17 Air Cav.

 

I like to drain a warm motor as well, to get the oil in the motor to drain, and any sediments mixed up. My filter never spills if I wait, but it's always 95% full, give or take (Which is really close to the expansion rate of oil for 120° temp rise). I know the 6.7 manual states that a 30 minute drain is required to get all the oil out.

My sender is on the block above the ECM and I see oil psi in about the same time you do, goes to show how fast the oil moves thru the block.

Yes, I fly the AH-64. Thank you for your Service!

 

If you're really that concerned, take truck for a 30 min drive, stop on level ground, shut it down, drain the oil for 2-3 minutes, and change the filter. Add ONLY 11 qts of oil, run for 1-2 minutes, shut it off, wait 15 min and check the oil level. The indicated level on the stick is your 1 qt low mark. Add the last qt, WAIT 2-3 MINUTES FOR THE OIL TO GET TO THE PAN and recheck reading, this is your FULL, DO NOT EXCEED LEVEL. Anytime you check the oil you should be on level ground.

 

They do drain back, it is normal. If you were to take the filter off after the truck sat over night it can be done without spilling any oil because the oil has drained off the top of the filter. It will be full still but everything else will have drained.