I have to say thanks to all the members of this board who posted experiences with changing the oil and filter on the 5.7. All the tips really helped!! I changed my oil and filter yesterday with some trepidation, but being I was a F-4 crew chief in the USAF before, I figured I was mechanically inclined to try it myself.
The skid plate takes the most time to remove and put back on but was really not that bad, mine even has additional spacers in the rear 3 bolts to make room for the diff drop with my lift kit. Really it lined up pretty good and was not a big deal, helps to have a strong arm to hold it up.
A 10 qt bucket works great to prevent oil shooting all over, I also just in case covered the pass side wheel and brakes with a big towel to prevent it getting splashed with oil just in case, but with the bucket it did not at all. Drain oil and reinstall drain plug, I have more drain plug gaskets but the one stayed in place and I just re used it. Make sure you have one in place and don't accidentally use 2 or none.
Get 18" piece of plastic tubing to slip over the plastic housing drain tool that comes with the filter kit, 5/8 ID if I remember. Use the O ring, it stayed in place when I removed the filter drain plug. I just forcefully pushed that thing in there with the hose attached and it worked perfect. Let it drain a couple Min's and remove the housing cap. My housing wrench was a little tight so had to really push it up hard to seat it. Make sure it is fully engaged before trying to spin the cap off o you may damage the housing cap. Also note the position of the large o ring when you pull the cap!!
remove old filter and old O rings small and large the small one came off when I twisted out the plastic drain tool.
Oil up the large O ring and carefully slide it into position noted earlier making sure it is fully seated. Slide new filter on and hand tighten cap back into place, I just left the cap wrench on the filter housing the whole time as Replaced the filter and O rings. After its hand tight finish tightening with wrench, do this slowly.
Lube up and install small O ring and put in housing drain plug by hand first! then tighten the rest of the way.
Pour in oil, I used Mobil 1 0-20w 7.4 as specified in the manual was right on. First I poured in 7 quarts then started the engine and checked for leaks and let it run for a couple Min's. good to go. Re checked the oil level and topped it off. reinstall skid plate. Done, spilled about 2 table spoons of oil total, not bad! Thanks again guys you all really made this job go well. I really don't see what all the fuss is about it is a good system, yes harder than a spin on but not bad at all IMO. worst part is the skid plate and thats not really that bad. Get a box of disposable rubber gloves and when one set gets oily just put on a new pair, keeps everything much cleaner, including you
