New job means a longer commute and more mileage, which in turn means more servicing needed. So my plan is to do some of the servicing myself and leave the bigger stuff to the specialists. I hadn’t done any DIY servicing on the Scoob, although I had done the basics on my previous cars. This weekend, then, was a step into the unkown. Hopefully by sharing my experiences, people in the same situation might pick up a thing or two.
Oil/filter change
This was the first job. The biggest change from my previous cars was the presence of a plastic guard under the sump, so that had to come off. Easily done with two round clips, two plastic c-shaped clips and a few 12mm hex bolts. Draining oil and filter was easy, and reinstalling same was easy. Topped up with Motul 300V 15W50. One slight surprise was that 4 litres was just bringing the level to the bottom of the dipstick, although the car was on an incline so it was hard to get a good reading. Ran the engine to circulate the oil and topped up with approx 0.5-0.75 of a litre to bring it up to the F mark.
K&N Air Filter clean
Again, pretty easy. spray on the cleaner, let it work for 10-15 mins and rinse off with running water. Leave to dry and then spray on the new filter oil.
Spark plugs
This was the bit I feared most. I had never messed with coil packs, never done plugs on a boxer and was afraid of dropping something in the bowels of the engine and not getting it back. Washer reservoir, battery and air filter holder came out easy. Coil packs came out fine also, I like the way the bolt is retained in the coil pack to prevent it dropping down into the bottom of the engine bay. The biggest difficulty with the plugs was getting the right combination of extensions and a ratchet to give enough room to remove the plugs and install new ones. My 1/2 in set had extensions that were too long or too short and the ratchet was very big. So I dug out my old 3/8 in set which had a better range of extensions and a smaller ratchet. Moral of the story: never throw out your old tools. The only worry I had reinstalling the plugs was whether I had torqued them correctly. The fact that you have to work at a slight angle sometimes doesn’t help in feeling the actual torque you’re applying and I don’t have a small torque wrench so I was relying on feel alone. Also, I wondered if using anti-sieze on the threads meant that you could end up overtorquing the plugs. Time will tell I suppose. Another slight concern is that I used PFR6Bs rather than PFR7Bs as I couldn’t afford to be waiting for delivery etc. The engine spec is standard so this should not be an issue.
Rear Diff Oil Change
This was an utter pain. With the car only up on axle stands, it’s hard to get enough leverage. Breaker bar, torque wrench, everything thrown at it and the plugs would not budge. Eventually I came up with the idea of using my trolley jack to apply enough force to the torque wrench to loosen the plug. Used this technique on both the drain and filler plugs. Motul 300V gear oil was used in the diff, the old stuff looked in reasonable condition - a bit cloudy but not bad.
So that’s it, some basic DIY servicing done. The car started and ran fine after changing the plugs, which was a big moment of truth. It could do with a wash but I’m much happier now that I’ve done the stuff above and have had a good look around underneath at bushes etc. Some Ferodo DS2500 pads are on order, so hopefully I’ll tackle them to have her fully ready for winter.
265 brakehorsepower from 2 litres is to be respected, enjoyed and honoured in equal measure. What better way to honour it than give the engine a good spruce-up. Breaking out an array of chemicals, brushes and tin foil left the motor looking like this:
Regular readers of the blog (ok, using the plural is a tad optimistic) will recall my run-in with big screws on my Bridgestones, here. Well, now the users of our highways and byways have progressed to dropping pop-rivets on the road.
The one piece of luck I did have was that the previous weekend, I had rotated my tyres and it meant that by pure chance, the tyre that was on the way out picked up the rivet.
Most specialists would recommend oil changes on the WRX every 6k miles or 6 months, whichever comes first. Since I run up about 12k-13k per year, the 6 monthly oil change is adequate. My pre-winter oil change was due this month, and was duly carried out as ever by the STI Tuning crew (www.stituning.net) on the 21st October.
In the weeks running up to the service, the car felt like it needed one, and since having the oil change done it feels a lot fresher. The wipers are on the car almost 2 years now, so they need to be changed before the bad weather really kicks in. Another task to help prepare for the harsh months ahead was a good wash and another coat of Autoglym HD wax. Once the wheels get a coat of wheel sealant, that will be it in terms of proper protection for the winter, with the attention focussing on regular washes, particularly once the roads are salted.
So, after a few tentative steps into the world of stripping down 4-stroke engines, what are my first impressions? Something that really jumps out is the quality of the craftsmanship and engineering that goes into the fine parts of the engine - camshafts, journal bearings etc. It’s incredibly impressive. Another thing that strikes me is the amount of disassembly that can be done with a 10mm socket, the design of the engine for manufacture is obvious. Finally, the surgical nature of the job means that it’s a good idea to catalogue and tidy away things as they come off the engine. The temptation to go bald-headed into the stripdown would inevitably end in a melange of parts covering the shed floor. Cataloguing the items will (hopefully) aid the rebuild.
So, I needed a project for the long evenings. Well I needed two actually. One was to get an old bike engine and see if I could strip it and rebuild it to learn about the basics of 4-stroke propulsion. The second was to try my hand at documentary photography, in otherwords telling a story using photos. Eureka, the decision was made to document my engine stripdown using the medium of photography. Read all about it here….here
So, having been given a machine polisher for Christmas, it wasn’t until June that I got a combination of a free weekend and some decent weather to use it. First thoughts are that it takes a bit of getting used to, particularly with Menzerna polishes. It is difficult for the beginner to get >90% paint defect correction, but the results are impressive nonetheless. Full write up in the How-To section.
So, having gone from the highs of having new rear shocks installed in March 2009 to the lows of having them fail under warranty, Spring 2010 brought another high as the rears were replaced. No more gritting my teeth as the back of the car clunks clumsily over speed bumps and potholes, just the reassuringly stiff bounce as the dampers soak up the road imperfections (of which there are many due to the frost damage from The Big Freeze in January). Next job is to try out my machine polisher on the car for the first time. The car could do with some TLC after a rough winter.
One thing’s for sure, it won’t sound anything like this at idle on a cold February morning. Thanks to the Green agenda and the general anti-car agenda, the days of firing up a flat four turbo’d engine for its warm-up routine and hearing this are numbered…what a pity.
I built my 3rd PC over the weekend and documented it for the How-To section. The article can be found here, it’s a fairly basic write-up but should give a good idea as to how it’s done.
