Oil Change

Now, I've changed oil before on cars. It's not that difficult, however what the last 3 years have taught me is that its pretty easy for a simple job to spiral out of control. Yesterday we had a happy, working vehicle. Today we do not.

The magic 500 miles (or pretty close to 500) was clocked up yesteday so today I thought I would change the oil, as advised by the engine run in procedure from BAE/Custom Power and Paint. The oil oil filter was an absolute arse to remove, had to shove a screwdriver through and made a good old mess. The new one was supplied with the engine, a Fram PH25. Old one was an AC Delco PF454. They are not the same!

Oil filter mount in the engine below - the Fram filter seal position is wrong.

After much headscratching I realised the PH25 is meant to fit the oil cooler takeoff sandwich plate that came with our engine. We haven't fitted the oil cooler yet because it requires some creative bracketry at the front and in this weather its not really needed, so I was planning to leave it off for now. Unfortunately this means that until I get another oil filter I can't use the car. Word on the street is that the Fram filters are pretty crap anyway.

So, I had warmed the garage up and didn't want to waste it, I've been out the garage for a bit during the gap between IVA and registration and I'd forgotten how much I actually enjoy whiling away the hours fiddling around with the car, even if I then complain about things going wrong on here! Next job on the list was to replace the leaking oil temp sender. It's a 1/8NPT thread into a 1/8 - 1/2 NPT adaptor which then goes into the sump. I dug out a copper washer and put the new sender in the adaptor, tightened it up and.....

Whoops! So now I have a car with no oil filter and no oil temp sender, in need of new parts a week before Christmas. Hopefully we can get it sorted so the father-in-law can have a drive on Christmas day.