oil dipstick tube broke off, completely!
 

my second problem of the night-

'03 f-350 v10 100,700 miles

my dipstick tube broke off! thats right, its rusted at the bottom, where it meets the pan, and today, it just snapped off! it broke off an inch from the oil pan. now what?

if u saved the tube...you can either weld it back one or just use some JB weld or some sort of high heat epoxy to stick it back on..and you have a major problem if it just broke off...

I think you can get one from the dealer for like $20 (seems I recall someone else buying one).

Sidebar: I could come up with some funny comments for the title - but i'll refrain.

F81Z6754FA
$17.12
Please dont waste good JB weld on a job this cheap and easy.

i appreciate the part #, but i have no idea how to do this. i spent all afternoon trying to figure out whats what, to no avail. again, i am not mechanically inclined whatsoever. is this an easy fix?

incredibly easy.
first you need to remove what is left of the old dipstick. Grab it with some pliars and pull it out with a twisty-pully kinda method.
Up near the top of the tube is where it is retained with a screw. lefty loosey.
feed the new tube in, it will fit with some resistance, as it would leak if it were loose.....
Having the dipstick in the tube might help you find the hole and get things started. when the hole in the bracket that is attached to the tube lines up with the hole in the block you are in far enough, put the screw back in.
all this talk about screws, dipsticks, and holes is making me hungry.......

now if you come back and say "there aint no screw" well then that is your problem and that is why it broke (along with the corrosion)

I feel like I'm babling........ did I make any sense at all????

If I recall correctly, you cant really see the hole..... but you can definetly feel it...... is it in yet?
oh geeezus
goodbye

:-missingt


thanks, good info. i appreciate it

My dipstick tube busted off also, I just pluged it with a bolt and rubber vacuum line cap for now, my question is how do you get anything in there to pull the rest of the dipstick out without removing the oil filter housing or whatever its called? The motor mount also bolts to this housing, is there a way around it?

IF IT BROKE OFF RIGHT AT THE BLOCK!!

I had the same on 2003 f350 v10 6.8l. I needed a few tools,time,and patience.
1) Kobalt 4-Piece Hook and Pick Set * Item #: 239658 * Model #: 324621N (lowes)
2) Dremel Flex-Shaft Attachment* Item #: 94685* Model #: 225-01 (lowes)
3) dremel to fit flex shaft( I had one, a 345) (lowes)
4) Dremel 3/8" Aluminum Oxide Grinding Stone* Item #: 94729* Model #: 952(lowes)
5) Digital Inspection Camera Item # 67979 Manufacturer: Cen-Tech (harbor freight)
6) guide wire for drop ceiling, about 3 feet
7) foam ear plug
8) flexible magnet stick
9) 12 inch 3/8" ratchet extension
10) craftsman awl
11) Harbor freight has long pipe cleaners the size of largest oil tube

buy a new tube so you can see what it looks like. you will see it is tapered at the end. THE HOLE IN THE BLOCK WAS THE SIZE OF THE LARGER PART OF TUBE ALL THE WAY THROUGH ON MINE!

First thing is to remove tire/ remove plastic wheel well, be careful of the plastic push buttons holding wires on engine compartment side./use camera down through the exhaust manifold, behind the engine mount and look for the hole. Reach around the engine mount that holds oil filter( you need small hands like mine, this is a very tight spot). push ear plug in the hole. this will stop things from dropping in. use flex dremel with grind wheel to grind the top of tube off.you can now see the seam between tube and block with the camera. use a drywall screw to remove ear plug.DRAIN OIL AND LEAVE BOLT OUT. side guide wire through tube and down to bottom of oil pan. use small piece of wire to snake it out of drain hole. use awl and place it in seam between tube and the block and tap it down folding tube in a LITTLE.you should have to do this at 4 or 5 locations or so around hole.I had to use a 1 foot piece of3/4" rigid pipe to tap it because of the little room between manifold and mount.spray with pb buster spray heavily and leave overnight, spray again and again.now use straight awl from Kobalt kit. do the same as awl, but this time use 1 foot 3/8 ratchet extension through the exhaust manifold and place on top of Kobalt awl, hold ext on awl with one hand and use hammer to tap the extension from the top down a little more then the first time carefully, don't break it. move it to different spots between tube and block. you should have to do this at four locations or so. It may side down into pan, if not try taping kobalt awl around again, then you could use a screw driver to tap it down into the pan, it will slide down the wire and can be guided out on wire. use Harbor freight long pipe cleaner to clean hole.

I over filled oil, DO NOT START ENGINE and changed OIL AGAIN.I did this to get any debris out.
Good luck!

Thanks
 

SFG read your fix for repair of dipstick tube broken off in block, mine just broke off at the block two days ago, to busy to fix now so I inserted an expandible rubber plug I got from Aubachans yesterday for a 1.75 I plan to follow these instructions for the most part, but I was thinking that rather than overfill the pan I will use funnel and new tube to put some oil flush down through the hole in the block for the dipstick tube, and then with drain plug still removed pour a quart of oil in to flush out anything in the pan.

Thanks again for your help,
JD

I wonder if mounting some kind of bracket securing the tube to the valve cover would help stabilize the tube from moving when pulling out the dipstick. That tube sticks up vertically at 90 degrees. Most other tubes in other cars are on an angle more like the natural angle when you pull on it.

One thing I've learned is to twist the dipstick back and forth (clockwise/counter-clockwise) prior to pulling the dipstick would release the sticky feeling, thus preventing you from bending the tube.

Here is what I did when I broken my dipstick tube off at the block when doing headers. I already had the driver side fender liner out so it made things pretty quick and easy. I drained the oil from the oil pan.
I took a cable (coaxial actually with the connector cut off) and fed about 1-2 feet worth into the remainder of the tube and into the oil pan. I then took a wire coat hanger, cut it, straightened it out and made a hook that was just small enough to fit into the oil pan plug hole but big enough to hook over the cable I fed into the pan from the dipstick tube.
I inserted the hook end into the pan and fished around until I was able to hook part of the cable. I pulled and tugged on this part of the cable until I had it out of the oil pan drain hole. Then I pulled on that piece until I had the end I fed into the dipstick tube out being careful not to pull the other end all the way into the pan (in fact I knotted it so it couldn't be pull down) .
So what I had at this point is one end of the cable starting above the broken dipstick tube and the cable running down into the oil pan and out the drain hole. Now it was a simple matter of taking a punch and driving the remainder of the dipstick tube down into the pan. Once I freed it from the block it naturally followed the cable down and out the drain hole in the oil pan.
Total cost was nothing since I had all the pieces laying around the house and it took me longer to cut the ends off the cable and make the wire hook then it did to get the dipstick tube out.

I know this is an old thread but if its of any assistance to other so be it lol. Mine broke of flush with the engine head so I used an ez out and vise grips(the real deals not no crappy tire junk there is a diference lol) and an air hammer from under my 2000 f150 with long tubed headers installed so its possible for everyone ;). Like others have mentioned it does at first seem pointless and u go now where slow lol, but mm by mm it'll come out. Once a little bit comes out it'll come out very easy from that point. To be honest though I'm not sure a hammer would of done it for me as it took a while with the air hammer, I mean 20-30 minutes and one couldn't do that much hammering in such confined space. Ct always has a set on sale for 99$ for the 4 pieces(plus 100 & something assosorie set) good to have if u do ur own work a lot. Torque/rachet/hammer/cut off tool. I'm really not sure it woulda come out otherwise after seeing how much it took the air hammer to get it loose. But if u don't want to buy an air hammer and feel hopeless otherwise, the part that's broken inside is a good 3-4" long so pulling the pan and hammering it from below is an option, I mention this as I was scared to do this as I really wasn't sure there would be anything to hit if I took it off!
Good luck and do it urself don't fork out a few hundred $$'s for a 20$ part :)