For this week’s challenge I decided
to get my hands a little dirty and learn how to change the oil in a car. Back
again to help out was my buddy Steve. It’s not that I think I might take up
changing my own oil on a regular basis it’s just something that I thought might
be a good idea to know how to do if the occasion ever arose requiring me to
know how to complete this particular task. But enough chit chat, away we go…
Once when I was about 17 or 18 my
dad thought I should know how to change my own oil and proceeded to teach me on
my car in the driveway at home. Now teenage me did not have the appreciation
for how useful this might be and did not pay one bit of attention. Besides, I
didn’t want to wreck my freshly painted nails so I just nodded and said “ok” at
the appropriate times until the lesson was over. Little did I know this would
end up on a list of things I wanted to accomplish years later.
Steve has access to a garage that
includes a pit especially for changing oil so I wasn’t going to have to roll
around underneath the chosen automobile. While I’ve aged some years I still don’t
really want to get dirty unless it’s absolutely necessary so the pit was a
definite plus. So last week after work I met Steve up in San Antonio (Florida,
not Texas!) and followed him to his parent’s house where the garage with the
said pit was located. If I didn’t know Steve as well as I do I would have
thought he was luring me out to an isolated area to make me into a skin suit.
Luckily for me, Steve isn’t really the skin suit wearing kind of guy!
Once we got to his parent’s house
Steve changed into a handy dandy jumpsuit which was just perfect for changing
oil. I already had on clothes I didn’t mind getting dirty so there was no need
for me to don a jumpsuit. But I did bring my gardening gloves so I could keep
my mani intact. What can I say, some things never change. Now I just got the
oil in my car changed last week when I had to make an unexpected trip to the
mechanic’s shop after a dead battery incident so we were going to change the
oil on Steve’s car. Which worked out perfectly because if I’d had to go to the
auto parts store to pick up the supplies I would have been clueless.
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| Steve and his jumpsuit |
After getting the car properly
situated over the pit we climbed down in there so we could get started. Steve
very thoroughly explained how oil works in the engine and what happens when you
don’t change it when you ought to. Surprisingly enough I’ve let my car go a wee
bit longer than I should before making it down to the shop and I was familiar with
the rattling Steve described when you let it go too long. Oops.
Moving on, Steve showed me where
the plug thingy was and we got started on unscrewing it and getting a pan
underneath to catch all the oil. Once the oil had drained we put on the new
filter. I have to say it didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it was going
to and there was a lot more oil in the pan that I thought there would be. I’m
not exactly sure why I thought there wouldn’t be that much oil in the car but I
just did. In my head oil changes were needed because all the old oil had
disappeared somewhere which necessitated new oil being put in. Not at all how
it works but that’s how I pictured it. Oh well.
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| draining the oil |
Now for the final part. We found a
funnel and I got started pouring all the oil into the car. And presto, we were
all done! Now for the cleanup and a kind of funny story. Before you all think I’m
a terrible person for laughing at what I’m about to tell you let me assure y’all
I was given permission to include this in the blog. As we were cleaning up,
Steve went to pick up the oil pan to drain it and his cell phone fell out of
the pocket of his jumpsuit and landed right in the still full oil pan! After a
split second of utter shock, Steve plunged his gloveless hand into the hot oil
to retrieve the phone. After getting the majority of the oil off it we gave it
a test to see if it was still alive and wouldn’t you know it, it was! So lesson
of the day, submerging your Iphone in motor oil does not completely ruin it.
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| Adding the new oil |
I don’t think my mechanic shop
needs to worry about losing my business every 3,000-5,000 miles or so but I’m
super glad that I know how to change my own oil should the need present itself.
Thanks again Steve!
