What it cost me to own a $500 car, part 31

"StudyStudyStudy" (jesterjin)
05/02/2016 at 14:05 • Filed to: None

Good tip: know the part you want. Don’t trust someone to know the measurement. Take the part off the car or at the bare minimum, take a micrometer measurement of relevant dimensions.

Called up the toyota dealership to see if they had any of these fabric/composite gaskets for the oil drain plug in stock. The guy on the phone answers and says, “oh sure we’ve got tons!”

So after I leave work, on my way to the dealership I see a BMW run right into the back of a new aluminum bodied ford F-150. The glass and stuff peppered the road about 2 feet away from my car. I imagine that is going to be a pricey insurance claim.

I walk into the dealership, I always feel a little awkward driving a non mark car into the wrong dealership. Anyways, I walk up to the counter and I see the name tag of the gentleman I spoke with on the phone, let’s call him Sam. Luckily Sam was helping another customer, so I ask the guy next to him for help finding my part. He looks it up, and asks Sam where they are. Sam says “oh toyota stepped down to a smaller drain plug a while ago so they are all the small M14 ones in the drawer.” This raises flags, as I had pulled the drain plug recently and noticed that it had a 19mm head and the replacement plug was a M18 thread. I point it out, and Sam says “I guess yours is a bit older,” not a big deal, but....

1. I was planning on buying a butt load

2. left work early in peak traffic just to get these parts

The guy helping me looks up the part on the computer, instead of the hundreds the have in stock for the small drain plugs, they have 2 in stock for the large ones, I was planning on buying about 10, but 2 will have to do. I pick up both along with a tube of toyota FIPG (form in place gasket) which is really well designed and head out the door.

Note the little turn key item included so you can squeeze out every last drop.

I talked to the alignment shop, despite all my adjustable parts the guy seems unfazed over e-mail. Says he can have it done in about 2-3 hours. I’ll have to take off work a little early or maybe head in a little later, but given their reviews I’m pretty ecstatic. Only problem is the dripping oil. Would hate to mar their floor and what not.

Back to my garage, I slip under the car. I’m a little hesitant to drain the oil as I have really not driven this car very much at all. Granted given that the oil is pretty ancient I suppose it is about time to swap it out. There goes the $8 I just spent in the last post topping off the oil...

I figure before I go throwing all this oil or potentially the new oil away, I should test the new gasket to make sure it seals. I quickly pull the plug and install the old plug with the new softer teflon gasket.

Hooray, oil leak stops! I pull the plug back out and let it drain completely. Partly to get the oil out, partly because I don’t remember what kind of oil filter I am running. Now I have two gaskets, so I figure I’ll throw in the other one and save the other test gasket for later to use in an emergency if they don’t restock and I desperately need an oil change. I throw the new gasket on my magnetic drain plug, add a bit of the FIPG on both sides as recommended and let it cure in the oil pan. Pull off the oil filter for the part number and off I go to the auto parts store for new oil and a filter.

Those are the variety of gaskets. The first one is copper and came on the motor. I’m not sure why it wasn’t leaking at the time, maybe the heat cycles finally got it to warp and leak, I’m not sure. Second is the aluminum washer that came with the dorman magnetic drain bolt, these have traditionally been pretty good on the other engines I’ve used it on, but apparently no go here. Last is the teflon/composite washer.

I remember a vague conversation about this being off of a Ford Ranger from the 90's.

With the oil leak hopefully sorted, plan is to go grab some oil and a new filter and start fiddling with the suspension. Given that these are bolt on strut tops the camber adjustment to gain positive camber requires the upright to come out. Additional negative camber can be added with the control arms. I want to drive it this weekend so I want it somewhere in the ball park, I figure that will also save the alignment shop some time when I get a chance to schedule it.

Pretty happy for the moment, only big thing I want to do this summer is maybe get new legitimate seats. Plenty of big plans for winter, new fuel cell, transmission bullet proofing, new clutch, more power, body work and maybe flares etc.

Lessons learned:

Look up specs, diameters, part numbers etc before you go to the store. You don’t have to bring them up, but check it mentally or compare with numbers they give you so you don’t walk out with lots of the wrong part.

Money spent:

10-30 Synthetic oil - 27

Oil filter - 6

Toyota FIPG -24

Oil drain gasket x 2 - 6

Subtotal: 62

Total Spent: 21954

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DISCUSSION (2)

MonkeePuzzle > StudyStudyStudy
05/02/2016 at 14:46

wait a minute, where’s the running total?

StudyStudyStudy > MonkeePuzzle
05/02/2016 at 14:53

Lol, don’t worry I accidentally hit publish before I meant to, I’ve added it all in. This one had a lot of text and little progress so I was planning on combining it with the next one, but that ended up being too long. I cut it in half and hit publish instead of save. Oops, all is well now, you can continue keeping track of my bad habit!