Hi guys, just finished up my first oil change @ 1500 miles! * Lowers head shamefully * Took me the ENTIRE bloody day!!
Background: Used to just go to quick lube places for my old car (hand me down). Now that I have a car that I bought with my own $ and care about it, I decided to do as much work on it myself as possible.
So I had done oil changes with my dad in the past (where I would do all the work, dad supervising), and they went just fine, every time. I had no idea what lay in store for me..
With my dad, we had stupidly just used those emergency scissor jacks on each pinch weld (Right and Left) to raise the car while we were under the car. I definitely wanted to do things right this time, EVERYTHING safely and correctly.
So..I had bought me a 2.5 Ton Hydraulic Floor Jack (19" raise height), 2 Ton Jack Stands, 2 pairs of wheel chocks. These were all purchases I had done earlier in the month so I would have everything ready for when I hit 1500 miles.
1500 miles hit and I was psyched, I had everything ready! Set up all my stuff in the garage and..lo and behold, the hydraulic jack was not long enough to get to the front jacking point between the two front tires!! And the floor jack was NOT one of those small wimpy ones either that you can get for like $30. It was a nice, quality one, well sized, and still came up ~8 inches short.
I was SHOCKED. There went my idea of going under a raised car safely supported by jack stands..
I then tried jamming myself under the car while lowered. Thankfully I am small and skinny and am able to do this.
I then realized the strap type oil filter wrench I had bought, was not going to work due to the location of the filter + lay out of surrounding things. Uggh, yet another purchase gone wrong!
Went back to NAPA to return my jackstands. Then went to Adv Auto Parts to return the floor jack wheel chocks. While there, also get a 'normal' oil filter wrench of the 65-67mm, 14 flute variety.
Got back home, jammed myself under my unraised car again, and actually WAS able to get the oil filter off. BTW, that little scoop thing under the oil filter..what a joke! It does nothing! (Aggh, the goggles...they do nahthing!)
Next, I then attempted to loosen the oil drain plug. BTW, if this saves anyone any trouble - the correct socket size for the drain plug is 17mm.
So I heard people say that the oil filter was going to be hell due to Mitsubishi utilizing the assistance of Godzilla to screw it on. My experience with the oil filter was not 'easy' due to the unraised car/cramped space situation, but it really was nothing hard to un-tighten.
The drain plug on the other hand! My goodness, who torqued this thing on??!! After a very good long while of struggling with the thing, I came to the terrible realization. I need to raise the car up for this. Terrible realization b/c all I had access to were 2 emergency scissor jacks, EXACTLY what I wanted to avoid from my earlier days. At this point, it was WAY too late to go back to the auto parts store to get what I really needed, some ramps. So..I actually did do the stupidest thing again. I raised the car up with the scissor jacks, and what's worse, I didn't even have my wheel chocks anymore, took a deep breath and rushed under the car so I could be under there the least amount of time possible. Even with better leverage position, thing would not budge! Repositioned my legs to use the front wheel for even better position/leverage, pushed with all my might, and BOOM!! - my left hand went flying into the front wheel well cover scraping off a good amount of skin (went through my glove like a puffy cloud).
Got out from under the car to control the bleeding. Once the bleeding was not as bad, put on a fresh glove and got back under the car (now, I HAD to finish this!). Much to my surprise, the drain plug was loosened (that's how I hurt myself, when the stuck plug came abruptly loose, my hand followed in the direction I was loosening with all my force).
From there on, nothing else eventful happened. Actually no, scratch that. Some winged insect actually flew in my ear canal! Happened as I was replacing the front, under panel/cover that I removed to get better access to the oil filter. Strange feeling having something flapping it's wings in your ear canal. I think I managed to get it out as I don't feel/hear anything there anymore, still..I do feel paranoid about it..
So that was my first oil change ordeal! Good thing is, even though I DID take the whole day to do it, it was done! Actually eager for the next oil change (5000 more miles) b/c I know it will go a LOT smoother (drain plug not super torqued, etc).
Micro-machine
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