Engine Service Finished

After much postponing, I went to do the oil change. It was one of the jobs I liked the least, mainly because I don't like greasy stuff on my hands. But I hate wearing gloves. But let's get on with the details...

First I swapped the rectifier with the new one just arrived from the UK. Plugged the battery in, started the engine and tested the voltage. The Digidash still reads less than 12v when I turn on the lights... So the problem is not with the rectifier. I'll have to research what other components may be causing this. At least I now have a spare for a part that usually fails.

While the engine was warming up the oil, jacked up the car so that the pan would fit under the engine. Having the car up a bit, the Digidash was reading 22º for the oil temp. Should be more but having the temp reader on the end of a pipe is known to not be the best solution. When I untightened the drain plug, after turning the engine off, it SURE was hotter!

All oil drained, removed the oil filter. And made a mess of my garage floor. Forgot to put some newspapers under the car and the filter contained oil that was then spilled. Cleaned the mess, placed the newspapers and then closed the drain and moved the old oil from the pan to 2L Coke bottles. I now need to find a place that can take them to be recycled. There was almost no deposit on the pan, just 3 or 4 "flakes", almost like bits of paint. I hope this means I have a strong gearbox! To reach the filter, removing my side panel wasn't enough. Had to unbolt and take off the nosecone too.

Unpacked the new filter, smeared the seal with the new oil and fitted it. Then used a funnel to feed the remaining oil into the engine. I wanted to follow Andy's (from AB Performance) instructions but ended up just putting the whole 4L of oil inside the engine. It should be good as the Haynes manual said the engine would take 3,7L if I changed the filter.

I didn't recall the PSI figures when the engine was running. So I cranked with no spark and relieved a bit the filter. PSI rose to 7, I thought it should be enough. Added the spark and cranked the engine. It fired into life at around 40PSI... Ups :)

Left the car on stands because next task will be to fix the wobbly front wheel, that will imply removing the wheel. After that I should really take it to a track. Even without fixing the electric issues and the battery charging...