Photo showing oil pan off and position of dipstick.

[Snagglefoot]

I replaced my leaking oil pan gasket on my 2005 Ford Taurus with 84,000 miles. In the background to the left of the oil pump intake is the dipstick. What might look like a large change on a dipstick is actually a smaller change in the actual oil level because of the angle of the dipstick in the pan. I imagine this is true with many cars. Enjoy.

 

[SZR48207]

Cool and useful pic. Thanks for posting.

 

[bbhero]

Yeah this is pretty cool picture ^^^^

 

[dishdude]

So clean!

 

[joekingcorvette]

I never seen a picture of a dipstick like that. Very cool!

 

[Kira]

Which engine is that?

 

[wwillson]

It looks like the full mark will bring the oil, while engine is not operating, to the cover some of the windage tray? While the engine is running and oil is being pumped from the pan, the level should be lower than the low point of the windage tray.

Interesting photo!

 

[wemay]

Very cool picture

 

[Snagglefoot]

Originally Posted by Kira
Which engine is that?


Ford Vulcan 3.0 OHV

 

[blupupher]

Interesting to see. So even if the stick reads empty, you can see there is still a lot of oil capacity between end of the stick and oil pickup (not something I would want to see, and no way to know how far below the end of the stick it is, but still and interesting thing).

 

[PimTac]

Originally Posted by blupupher
Interesting to see. So even if the stick reads empty, you can see there is still a lot of oil capacity between end of the stick and oil pickup (not something I would want to see, and no way to know how far below the end of the stick it is, but still and interesting thing).




Probably a safety factor built in but we have to consider that the oil needs to be at a adequate level to avoid the pickup from sucking air during times the vehicle is going up or downhill.

Interesting picture.

 

[gfh77665]

OP, what is the vertical measurement between the bottom tip of the dipstick and the screen of the pickup? Maybe 2 inches (5cm)? Thanks.

 

[cdlamb]

Is that a top level hole in the dipstick? Looks like upper level is just below the joint where the pan bolts to engine?
Hard to tell with photo where the max oil level is.
Also why is the pan off? Rebuild time?

 

[ammolab]

Originally Posted by cdlamb
Is that a top level hole in the dipstick? Looks like upper level is just below the joint where the pan bolts to engine?
Hard to tell with photo where the max oil level is.
Also why is the pan off? Rebuild time?



WHY? The first sentence of his post: I replaced my leaking oil pan gasket on my 2005 Ford Taurus with 84,000 miles

 

[WyrTwister]

 

[nobb]

So there's quite a bit of safety factor from the bottom of the dip stick to when it would actually start to suck air. Probably accounts for the vehicle being in different angles and such.

 

[4WD]

Originally Posted by nobb
So there's quite a bit of safety factor from the bottom of the dip stick to when it would actually start to suck air. Probably accounts for the vehicle being in different angles and such.


Under the new Rubicon

 

[jhMalibu]

This is a photo that I snapped when I changed the oil pan on a 2014 Golf (2.5L 5 cyl. NA) last year as the car was new to me and I really didn't like the oil pan being so rusty. About 41000 on the engine.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Originally Posted by wwillson
It looks like the full mark will bring the oil, while engine is not operating, to the cover some of the windage tray? While the engine is running and oil is being pumped from the pan, the level should be lower than the low point of the windage tray.

Interesting photo!

Yes, I think that would be a correct assessment .

Originally Posted by blupupher
Interesting to see. So even if the stick reads empty, you can see there is still a lot of oil capacity between end of the stick and oil pickup (not something I would want to see, and no way to know how far below the end of the stick it is, but still and interesting thing).


Yes, even if the dipstick showed no oil I believe the intake would be covered.
Originally Posted by gfh77665
OP, what is the vertical measurement between the bottom tip of the dipstick and the screen of the pickup? Maybe 2 inches (5cm)? Thanks.


I didn't measure it but measuring along the length of the dipstick it was 1-1/8 inch from the bottom of the dipstick to the lower marker (where it looked like black mark. Don't know what that was.) The hole further along was the top mark, and it was 1-1/8 inch between the two marks.


Originally Posted by cdlamb
Is that a top level hole in the dipstick? Looks like upper level is just below the joint where the pan bolts to engine?
Hard to tell with photo where the max oil level is.
Also why is the pan off? Rebuild time?



Yes, the hole was the top level hole. The bottom level hole was where that black mark showed up. And yes I had an oil leak from the gasket and it was dripping on the hot exhaust, stinking things up.

I hope that helps. Thanks for your interest. The sump volume is just shy of 5 quarts. Here is a measuring tape against the dipstick, it's 2-1/4 inch from the bottom of the dipstick to the full mark measured along the sloping dipstick.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Let's see if this photo is better showing the high and low hole markers. Nope, for some reason when the photo loads from my Ipad the lower hole shows up as a black mark. Weird.