After work today I did my own oil change.
I used those Blitz ramps people were recommending. It barely leaves enough room for me under the car while on my creeper.
First thing I noticed was that a few of the #25 torx screws were starting to rust. After removing the bottom engine cover I found corrosive white dust at several locations. My first thought was acid from the battery, but the battery top looked clean and some of the white dust was some distance away - under the center of the engine.
The oil drain plug came off easily, but the washer would not come off over the threads. No big deal since I am replacing it with a magnetic oil drain plug. The original plug uses a 19mm socket, and the magnetic one uses 14mm.
I wanted to remove the Amsoil BE90 bypass oil filter to let the dirty oil out and then put it back on. I could not do this because none of my many oil filter wrenches could fit it.
The factory oil filter came off. It took me a while to find where the two original o-rings are in order to replace them.
I first used the oil filter wrench I purchased at Wall Mart : A vector type J filter Wrench 76mm with 14 flutes. It is made of some special tough plastic. This filter wrench got damaged from the torque and ended up sliding around the oil filter top. Then I used the Oil-Tite model 65048 that I purchased from Trak-Auto. It is made of metal and did the job fine. Too bad I didn't save the receipt for the Vector brand - then I could have returned it.
I poured in 1 gallon of chevron delo 400 5w-40 oil, and poured the dirty oil into the container. It was a match!
The oil level was at the bottom bend of the dipstick just where the cross hatch begins. So I added a little to get it to the top of the cross hatch area.
Tomorrow I'll mail my oil sample off for analysis.
I used those Blitz ramps people were recommending. It barely leaves enough room for me under the car while on my creeper.
First thing I noticed was that a few of the #25 torx screws were starting to rust. After removing the bottom engine cover I found corrosive white dust at several locations. My first thought was acid from the battery, but the battery top looked clean and some of the white dust was some distance away - under the center of the engine.
The oil drain plug came off easily, but the washer would not come off over the threads. No big deal since I am replacing it with a magnetic oil drain plug. The original plug uses a 19mm socket, and the magnetic one uses 14mm.
I wanted to remove the Amsoil BE90 bypass oil filter to let the dirty oil out and then put it back on. I could not do this because none of my many oil filter wrenches could fit it.
The factory oil filter came off. It took me a while to find where the two original o-rings are in order to replace them.
I first used the oil filter wrench I purchased at Wall Mart : A vector type J filter Wrench 76mm with 14 flutes. It is made of some special tough plastic. This filter wrench got damaged from the torque and ended up sliding around the oil filter top. Then I used the Oil-Tite model 65048 that I purchased from Trak-Auto. It is made of metal and did the job fine. Too bad I didn't save the receipt for the Vector brand - then I could have returned it.
I poured in 1 gallon of chevron delo 400 5w-40 oil, and poured the dirty oil into the container. It was a match!
The oil level was at the bottom bend of the dipstick just where the cross hatch begins. So I added a little to get it to the top of the cross hatch area.
Tomorrow I'll mail my oil sample off for analysis.