wstar's Journal

wstar

Changed my oil to 300V this evening. I was able to do the change without lifting the car or using ramps, as predicted.

The only snag I ran into is that the magnetic drain plug I ordered had the wrong threads (too coarse, the stock drain plug has finer threads). I didn't end up ordering the Kics one semtex did, but I used the same thread specs when ordering from another place. Either those thread specs are wrong (someone else would have noticed by now I think) or they shipped me the wrong part. So the stock plug went back in for now with a new crush washer. I'm using a FilterMag on the filter anyways, so the magnetic plug isn't that big a deal.

I'm going to take the mag drain plug with the bad threads to Home Depot tomorrow and test it on some nuts there to verify what size they sent me, that should illuminate this issue.

The Nissan Ester Oil that was in the car is bottled up for Blackstone, we'll see what they say about it.

Various pics:

Supplies:



The view from above while the oil was draining:



Tried to get a shot of the clearance between the drain pan and the oil pan, but the lighting is pretty bad under there. This was shot while trying to hold a flashlight on it. This was a generic low-profile-looking round black drain pan I found at Wal-Mart, they probably stock the same ones nation-wide:



And this is a shot of the inner and outer surfaces of the FilterMag. It's got a bunch of Neodymium magnets set up in rows on a curved plastic surface. You just snap it onto the outside of your oil filter and leave there for the duration, and slide it off and move it to the new filter at each change. Later I'm going to cut open the filter I just took off (which was using the FilterMag) and see how much metal shavings were laying in there from the magnets:

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wstar

Oh and back on the subject of Motul...

Yes, it smells great, you really do want to drink it. The metal cans are retarded. The outside is flimsy and they're completely filled with no real air inside (I guess to preserve the oil better). I made a mess opening and pouring the first one, but I learned quickly and the other cans went fine. Set it down on a flat level surface, don't squeeze the outside, and remove that inner plastic seal very slowly and carefully

When I test drove the car on the new oil, it really did feel like the engine was happier and smoother. Then again, given how small the effect could possibly be, and knowing what I know about human psychology, most likely that was all in my head as I prayed for some visible benefit from an oil that's priced like liquid gold.

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