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Step 1: Raise the hood and take a good look at the engine to ensure that everything appears as it should. |
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Step 2: Poking out through the exhaust manifold is the oil dipstick. Pull it out and wipe it off with a shop towel. Now reinsert it, and remove it once again. It should read the current level of the oil and show you what the oil looks like. |
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Step 3: Looking down from the top of the engine you should be able to see the oil filter. It is down at the bottom of the motor towards the front of the car. |
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Step 4: As you get ready to work under the car, always take a look at the undercarriage. You are looking for wet or slick looking areas that would indicate an oil leak. If you are going to run an Engine Flush, it is time to put the engine flush in the motor via the oil fill on top of the motor. Follow the instructions on the flush (generally speaking it's let the car idle for ~5 minutes). |
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Step 5: Locate the oil drain plug. It's located underneath the motor towards the passenger front wheel. This drain plug is a 14mm bolt. Position the oil drain pan under the oil drain plug. Loosen the plug with the 14mm socket or wrench until you can turn it by hand. Apply upward pressure while continuing to loosen by hand. Finally, pull the plug away so that the car may drain. |
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Step 6: While you have the drain plug out wipe it off well and check the threads on the plug. You want to make sure that the plug's threads are clean and undamaged and that the head of the bolt is not rounded off. If either is true you should replace the drain plug. |
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Step 7: Wait until the oil has completely drained. Then wipe a little fresh oil on the washer of the drain plug. Use a shop towel to wipe off the area where the drain plug goes as well as the threads into which it will go. Reinsert and tighten the drain plug. Tighten it by hand as far as possible and then finish up with the wrench. It doesn't take a lot of strength to get it good and tight, so don't over tighten it!. |
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Step 8: Here is the old oil filter. Place the oil filter socket wrench over the oil filter. Pull the drain pan over so that it's under the oil filter. Since the oil filter is a good way up, use the socket extention to connect the socket wrench. Use the socket wrench to loosen the filter. Remove the rest of the way by hand. Because of the angle at which the oil filter rests, this may be really messy. Work as quickly as possible. Drain off the residual oil into the oil pan. |
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Step 9: As I said, the oil pilter is pitched at a very slight angle. You'll need to wipe off all the spilled oil using shop towels. Make sure you clean the threads for the spin on oil filter well. |
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Step 10: Take the new oil filter and apply some clean oil to the rubber seal and the threads. This will help it seal correctly. Spin the oil filter on and hand tighten. As I previously mentioned, the engine is pitched at a very slight angle. You need to match the angle to get the filter to screw on. Use the socket set to tighten an additional half turn. |
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Step 11: Here to can see the new oil filter installed. We're ready to start putting oil in the car, but first you want to double check the work you've don't so far. Make sure the drain plug is in place, the oil filter is in place, the dipstick has been put back. If you've successfully performed all the steps, then you're ready. |
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Step 12: Before we go ahead with the oil, let's check the air filter. There are two metal compression springs that hold down the air filter cover in the front. Here you can see one of them just behind the orange transmission dipstick. Unsnap both. (the other snap, not pictured, is at the driver's side front corner of the air box. |
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Step 13: Because of the design of this motor, even with the snaps undone, you can't get into the air box without disconnecting the incoming air tube. The screw compression ring needs to be loosened in order to pull the air tube off of the air box. |
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Step 14: Use the #3 Phillips Head screwdriver to loosen the fitting (don't completely undo it, just loosen enough to take the pressure off of the rubber hose). Pull the robber hose off of the airbox. It should look like this |
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Step 15: Now, inside the air box there's an additional air diverter. I don't know if it often comes loose, but as we pulled up the airbox to access the air filter it fell down. |
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Step 16: So, rather than leave the piece loose, we set it back into the airbox where it belongs. At least the piece only fits in one way, so if yours is loose as well, look at the fat end and the interior of the box. They match up easily. |
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Step 17: I always like to compare the old air filter against the new one. As you can readily see the air filter in this car was particularly dirty. We have a lot of dust in the air here, so air filters get dirty quickly. Put the new air filter in place, replace the air filter cover and reattach the snaps. Finally, reattache the rubber airhose and re-tighten the clamp. |
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Step 18: Now it's finally time to put the oil in! We initially added some Engine Restore to help fill in around the rings and ensure that everything was sealing correctly. Then finish adding the oil to a grand total of 3.5 quarts (that's 3.35 for the engine and the rest of the oil filter). |
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Step 19: Finally, check and clean the threads of the oil fill cap and it's mating on the top of the block. Now, go ahead and put the cap back into the block. |
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Step 20: It's a good idea to periodically run some uel injector cleaner through the car. It helps to ensure that the injectors are pumping the correct amount of gasoline. It also lubricates any of the moving parts in the assembly. You put it into the gas tank. You always want to put it in with a full tank of gas. So either fill the tank before the oil change, or as I prefer, fill the tank afterwards, and put the fuel injector cleaner in the tank just beore adding the gasoline. The latter will ensure that the cleaner mixes most effectively with the gasoline. |
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