Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Full quart oil cans a good idea?

Ah, the nightmare of draining STP. Yup, from the bottom, i just open it, and put it in a old coffee jar.
Put it over the coffee jar, come back 3 hours later, see how its doing. Then kinda shake it a bit. I think 4 hours drains one of them. Then i put some gas, swish it around, and away we go. Let it drain more, then dry it out. Not a problem. LOL.
Handy Oilers, i just leave, never have any leakage on them. If i did, there i would cut the top, then put the cap back on, so you wouldn't really know.
As for Grease tins, i just leave them alone, never had any problems with them. Sometimes I take out the grease if its going on certain shelves. The 25 lbs pails, i do take the greas out, cause my shelf racks are not strong enough for that weight.
I collect plastic bottles as well, them i like to drain. Old paint cans from the 1950's I collect them too, so them i leave well enough alone and try not to take the paint out, unless i have to..
The composite cans will probably all need draining someday, so it dont bother me to drain them now..

L8er Guys!

I've drained a few cans from the bottom,but begrugendly found there is always residual oil left that continually weeps out of the two small bottom holes.These were composite oil cans.
I cut open one of the bottom drained cans,and found a glob of grease/oil had settled there in the center of the bottom lid,and was the reason for the continual run off.
I even tried shaking them up first,as well as heating them up..but no difference.
I tried plugging the holes afterwards,but the oil still weeped out,and kinda defeated the reason for draining them in the first place.
I have since gone to draining them from the top.

How do you guys keep your bottom drained cans from weeping like this?

I don't drain any of my quarts untill they start to leak,then,I allways drain from the top to get around the problem of residual fluid.

As for handy oilers and grease cans,I don't drain or clean any of them;never had a problem.Further,I use the oil and grease still in them.I've found the oil in those handy oilers still works.

One of the age old can questions....full/empty. To me, after using the old Ben Franklin list method (one column for pro's and one column for con's) the empty can is what I prefer. Although it is personal preference, empty cans seem to be much less at risk for long term preservation. My 2 issues with a full can are 1) The potential for damage if dropped. They can be fixed/re-lidded but you always incurs some risk. 2) I have seen many full cans over the years that have paint damage from oil seeping out. To me, that is too much of a risk to keep a can full (or loaded as the old Iowa gas auctioneers used to call them). I have alot of guys that buy cans from me only if they are full and I respect that. However, for the ones I keep, the oil always goes. Engine degreaser and hot water are the best way I have found to remove excess oil inside.

To remove the oil inside, i just carefully put in some gasoline, and rince it out, but carefully as gas will usually take the ink off of cardboard, if your not careful.
Then let it sit, holes up for about a week, and it should drain. Mind you, ive never had any globs in it.
And sometimes i put a tissue under just in case, but using the gas, the napkin stays dry.