Hi All,
Along with Rob, I to have had approximately 47 years of changing oil on my Healey and remain with the original setup. It is a tricky task not to spill some oil and, although I have come close, never had an absolute success. The task is made easier if you disconnect the adaptor along with the canister by first slightly loosening both bolt and then taking the top bolt out in order to swivel the canister downward. The tricky part is to remove the last bolt and extracting the unit without being foiled by the servo vacuum hose.
In most changes I will drop some oil when extracting the unit from the vehicle but the mess is minimized with a pan under the frame and a piece of cardboard formed into a “V” to direct the droppings into the pan.
The mess come when you unload and clean the canister. This task required you unload the oil in the canister, extract the oil-saturated filter and dip your hands into the canister to clean it of its contents before loading the new filter.
Although I must have done quite a number of oil changes on my Healey, I never look forward to the task. Maybe when the car was new and I was younger this was not the case, however, that is too long ago to remember.
All the best,
Ray (64BJ8P1)