In truly world shaking news, I actually did something car related today. Was even successful at 50% of the items attempted.
Was intended to be oil, oil filter, fuel filter and air filter changes on the Volvo. Which it's been nagging me about for an embarrassingly long number of weeks now.
First try of the new vacuum oil drainer.
First impressions, far prefer it to the Pela it's replaced. Being tall but narrow.it actually takes up less room in the garage in terms of footprint, and having the pump integrated means you can operate it easily one handed - that would just result in the pump pulling off the top of the Pela. Also seems to be *way* faster - though admittedly 0W30 oil isn't exactly the thickest. Far easier to judge how much came out as well which takes some of the guesswork out of refilling. My Pela has always had issues with air leaks as well which meant you had to pump it a LOT when draining anything with a larger sump than the Invacar. I know it doesn't really mean anything, but this *feels* less flimsy too. 6.5 litre capacity means I can juuuuust manage a change on the Volvo without having to empty it mid way through as well which is nice. The Pela was officially 5, but I found unless you were continually pumping it the usable capacity was somewhere between 3-4 litres.
Have to confess this is the first time I've actually pulled the cover off the Volvo's engine.
Still makes my brain do a slight double take seeing odd numbers of things like injectors on an engine in a passenger car. It alarms me quite how many things I'm looking at in here and realising that I have absolutely no idea of the purpose of. A hell of a lot going on, but even under the cover it's a pretty tidy setup by modern standards at least compared to some others I've seen. Hello VW, yes I'm looking at you.
Speaking of the cover, there have clearly been mice in here at some point.
This appears to be significantly historic though as none of the bits of shredded acoustic foam are present around the engine bay, and I can't see anything else that's been nibbled thankfully.
My progress however was halted by this fluffing thing.
This is the cap concealing the replaceable element oil filter. Which is absolutely biblically tight. This is the third car I've had to deal with one of these on, and it's the third one I've had this fight with. On the Caddy I ended up having to get a breaker bar on it, the one on the Partner did eventually let go when I had all my weight hanging off it (which resulted in me just about knocking myself out on the battery when it let go and cutting my hand to ribbons on the radiator). This one I'm seriously worried that I'm going to shatter the thing - I can both feel and see the whole thing flexing. Will need to see if I can get a strap wrench around it *and* the socket on the top to try to turn the whole thing at once. I may see if I can get a spare cap from Volvo first just as insurance in case it does disintegrate.
I am seriously developing a real hatred for this style of oil filter.
Much as it pained me I admitted defeat and it got refilled with fresh oil with the old filter still in, and I'll come back to this next week - due to work going on at the moment I don't have a space on the drive to work in till Monday so it won't be until then at the earliest. I was out of time and energy by the time I waved the white flag on that so the rest of the filters will also need to wait.
Do seem to have found the source of my small oil leak.
Looks to be weeping out from under the rocker cover in the vicinity of that actuator (no idea what for!). Which given that the rocker cover also seems to BE the intake manifold, looks like it will be all manner of fun to rectify. Aren't modern cars fun? Realistically that's just being filed under "monitor" for now. I will most likely chuck that at a garage to sort if it becomes an issue as this is just too modern for me to really be comfortable beyond basic servicing, especially anything that involves dismantling bits of common rail injection systems. Nope, that sounds like a job for someone else.
Hopefully I can at least change the sodding oil filter without needing to call in reinforcements though...that would be nice in the whole "not feeling completely useless" department.
I'll have empathy as I have the same job to do soon on mine...
