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Jun. 2nd, 2018 12:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randomdreamsI changed the oil on both the commuter cars today, which involved two trips with the Triumph to get everything sorted out.
My car's easy, but I've been working on that car or one basically identical to it for 17 years, so that's no surprise.
threemeninaboat has a much more complex car. The engine compartment is filled, and it has an aerodynamic fairing under the engine that I have to remove to get to the bottom of the engine. (Mine had this, but A: mine had little sliding doors that I could open to access bits, and B: I removed the whole thing anyway.) In addition, because her car is lowered and has bigger wheels, I can't get to the fasteners that attach the sides of the fairing to the chassis unless I either remove the front wheels or turn the wheels all the way to one side, take off one, turn them all the way to the other, and remove the other side, and the fasteners are those irritating snap-plunger fasteners which really need two hands to remove easily.
So once I get all that done I can get an oil pan underneath the car, but at that point I have slightly less space to fit my hand in there and unscrew the oil drain plug than the size of my hand. That's okay because the drain pan is plastic so it smooshes down, but the problem with THAT is each time I turn my hand to unscrew the drain plug, it scoots the oil pan slightly off to one side, and then it's no longer in range to catch the oil, so I have to push it back over a little. I don't know when the plug is going to come out, so it's not like I can just unscrew it most of the way, move the pan over, and unscrew it the last little bit.
Well, today I misjudged when the oil plug was going to come out, which was: just as the oil pan moved over. Since her car uses really thin oil because it has a super fancy engine, that meant a liter of oil all over the place before I got the catch pan back in.
Sheesh.
On the plus side, I know for sure it has the right, fancy, high-flow oil filter, the right, fancy, full synthetic low viscosity oil, and it costs me about 1/3 what it would cost to take it to an oil place, plus she doesn't have to burn work hours waiting for an oil change.
Still, urk.
I should write notes, because when I only do something once every four months, I tend to forget bits.
Ya know. I could 3d print an oil plug tool shaped like a big low-profile funnel that has a 17mm socket fitting in the middle, so I could stick it on the oil plug and turn it and when the plug came out all the oil would get caught and shunted into tubing attached to the bottom and run over to the pan, regardless of whether than pan was under the plug or not. That would be really cool.
My car's easy, but I've been working on that car or one basically identical to it for 17 years, so that's no surprise.
threemeninaboat has a much more complex car. The engine compartment is filled, and it has an aerodynamic fairing under the engine that I have to remove to get to the bottom of the engine. (Mine had this, but A: mine had little sliding doors that I could open to access bits, and B: I removed the whole thing anyway.) In addition, because her car is lowered and has bigger wheels, I can't get to the fasteners that attach the sides of the fairing to the chassis unless I either remove the front wheels or turn the wheels all the way to one side, take off one, turn them all the way to the other, and remove the other side, and the fasteners are those irritating snap-plunger fasteners which really need two hands to remove easily.So once I get all that done I can get an oil pan underneath the car, but at that point I have slightly less space to fit my hand in there and unscrew the oil drain plug than the size of my hand. That's okay because the drain pan is plastic so it smooshes down, but the problem with THAT is each time I turn my hand to unscrew the drain plug, it scoots the oil pan slightly off to one side, and then it's no longer in range to catch the oil, so I have to push it back over a little. I don't know when the plug is going to come out, so it's not like I can just unscrew it most of the way, move the pan over, and unscrew it the last little bit.
Well, today I misjudged when the oil plug was going to come out, which was: just as the oil pan moved over. Since her car uses really thin oil because it has a super fancy engine, that meant a liter of oil all over the place before I got the catch pan back in.
Sheesh.
On the plus side, I know for sure it has the right, fancy, high-flow oil filter, the right, fancy, full synthetic low viscosity oil, and it costs me about 1/3 what it would cost to take it to an oil place, plus she doesn't have to burn work hours waiting for an oil change.
Still, urk.
I should write notes, because when I only do something once every four months, I tend to forget bits.
Ya know. I could 3d print an oil plug tool shaped like a big low-profile funnel that has a 17mm socket fitting in the middle, so I could stick it on the oil plug and turn it and when the plug came out all the oil would get caught and shunted into tubing attached to the bottom and run over to the pan, regardless of whether than pan was under the plug or not. That would be really cool.
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Date: 2018-06-03 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-06-03 02:00 am (UTC)