I have a nice oil trail like that leading out of my driveway, across and down the road to the mailbox from my oil filter blowing apart one cold morning about three months ago. Lots of traffic on our road, lots of rain in that time, trail's still visible. I wouldn't dare try to clean it up, we're right on the apex of a turn, the local ricer boys seem to think it's their private racetrack and come screeching around it, not a good place to be working out in the road! -TD

 

i was changing the oil in my truck one day and had the filter off, and the oil drained. i than put the new filter on and went topside to put the fresh oil in the truck. i took the oil cap off and got out my funnel than realized that i forgot to buy new oil. my wife was at work and i had to wait hours before she came home to go to the store to buy more oil. now i make a "parts check" before i start to do anything.

 

Zoltrix, what probably happened with your oil filter is it double gasketed. You have to make sure when you take off the old filter that the gasket comes off with it. It's not unheard of for a gasket to stay stuck to the engine, then when you screw on the new one, it won't seal.

As for cleaning it up, I'd use lots of cat litter.

 

When I was teenager I had a neighbor and buddy who one day decided he was going to change the oil in his parents Mailibu Wagon. Not really the most handy guy in the world, if you know what I mean. Long story short, he forgot to put the drain plug back in. Ended up dumping 5 quarts of fresh oil right onto driveway. Man, what a mess.

Needless to say, the guy never heard the end of it from the rest of the neighborhood gang...

 

I was half way across the country when I got a call from my wife. She said the low oil light was coming on. I told her to add a quart of oil. She wanted to know where to put it in and I told her to undo the cap that looked like an oil can. Even told her how to tip the bottle so she wouldn't have to use a funnel. I get a call back in a few minutes, and she says it barfed the oil back out Turns out she had no idea what an oil can looked like. She put it in the Power steering.

 

A trick to avoid having the gasket stick to the engine block is to apply oil to the rubber gasket before installing it on the engine. I have never had a gasket stick when doing this.

 

I have a couple of little procedures that I always follow when doing oil changes, and have never had any problems (at least, none stemming from the actual oil change!)

1. Drain the oil, then clean and inspect the plug, setting it in an obvious place so as not to lose it or forget to put it back in. Leave the wrench you used under the vehicle so that it's at hand when you go to put the plug back in. (If you have to get back out to get the wrench after you have put the plug in hand tight, you can just about bet that's when someone will come in and distract you, making you forget to tighten the little bugger!)

2. Remove filter, turn it upside down to drain.

3. With a clean rag, wipe off the filter mount on the engine, inspect the mating surface. (If the gasket has stuck to the filter mount, this is when you would find it.)

4. While everything drains, fill the new filter with fresh oil, using a little to lubricate the rubber gasket. It can take a while to fill the filter, as the oil seeps into it slowly and you have to keep adding more oil.)

5. Get back under the vehicle with the filter and drainplug in hand, install new filter. If it sits at an angle instead of hanging straight down, I don't fill it as full to minimize spillage.

6. Reinstall drainplug, being sure to tighten it using the wrench you left close at hand earlier.

7. Refill with oil, check the dipstick.

8. Disable ignition, crank engine with no fire till you see that you have oil pressure, then hook ignition back up and light 'er off! (I hate that annoying rattle of bearings slapping the crank till the pressure builds if you don't bother with the ignition-off cranking, but I've been known to skip that step when in a hurry.)

9. Check for leaks before driving off. You never know, you could get a bad filter that blows out, you might have a stripped drain plug, or if you have two of them, you might have forgotten to put one back in. I'll never forget the first time I changed the oil on my new '88 Mustang GT, didn't realize it had a double sump pan and only drained the front sump. I was surprised by how little oil came out, and when I checked the dipstick, it was still reading full! Got back under to take a closer look and found the rear sump!.

Hope this helps someone. Oil changes are probably just about the easiest maintenance to perform but there's still a lot of room to screw it up, with potentially disasterous, if not downright messy results. -TD

 

In the shop we use a lot of oil filters, about 1 in 200 either the gasket is off, loose or missing. I always dump the filter and look to see the old gasket is on it before grabbing the new. And from experience, I turn over an unopened new bottle of oil, tilt it back and use the oil out of the cap to lube the new gasket on the filter. I also gently press on the gasket to make sure it is seated. Had one oil change in 18 years of driving and servicing my own and others that I lubed and installed the oil filter, but the gasket popped off. Only lost about a 1 1/2 quarts before noticing. LUCKY

 

Don't bother cleaning the street. Within a few months you won't be able to tell where it was anyway.

 

I have never had a problem with double gasketing, or the gasket sticking to the engine. I always lube the new filter before sticking it on, i have changed the oil on my truck 10 times now, bout to have the 11th in a couple weeks, once i get time to do it, and it has yet to happen, I have had a bad filter though, in fact, 3 bad ones, same brand, Puralators, will not go with those any more, the filter wouldn't mount right on the threads, I use fram now, would use motorcraft, but the local autoparts store stopped carrying the size i need, dern advance auto, never have what you need, lol.

 

If you do clean the street and it's asphalt, don't use any solvent (gasoline, brake cleaner etc.) you might damage the asphalt and then be in hot water with who ever owns the street.

I'd just pour a bunch of kitty litter on it and drive over it for a few days and grind it in really good, then let rain and ma nature do the rest.