Oil pickup pipe viewing with a borescope

[MPS]

I'm toying with the idea of buying a cheap android borescope off eBay and putting it through the drain plug hole to enable me to visually check the condition of the strainer on the oil pickup pipe. If it doesn't work then only 7 quid lost. Anyone else tried this? Saves going through all the hassle of replacing the sump sealant if it turns out the strainer is OK.

The only difficulty I can imagine would be keeping the lens clean, focusing and steering the camera to what you want to look at.

Thoughts?

Here's the borescope, great gadget for £7!

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=322372437499&alt=web

[Rigsby]

Try it and let us know

[ady-uk]

Got one from a FB advert (although bluetooth and for iphone)
It is really good and great for looking into small crevices......but wouldn't work in an oily sump.
Think about it.....you'd push it in hole, walls with film of oil..... it'd naturally rest on floor as you push it inside and scrape a ridge of oil in front of the lens.
You'd see nothing but a big drop of dirty black oil.....

[lukemk5gti]

No way it would work. Zero visibility through dirty oil.

In theory after an oil change though it might be clear enough to try but sure then what's the point as you would need to drain it all out again to replace the pickup pipe if it were bunged up.

I did mine, took half a day all in including the oil/filter change.

If your car is approaching 100K mile and it's never been done then it's no harm. Especially if it has a dodgy past.

[pudding]

As well as that, the pickup sits very close to the bottom of the sump, so you would never get the borescope close enough to see anything useful.

I would just drop the sump and replace it anyway.  Then it's one thing off the list.  Get a magnetic sump plug from AKS as well.  These engines seem to generate a lot of swarf which sticks to cam and crank sensors, which can cause an inconsistent power delivery.

Handy things for checking valves and pistons tho!