Dear Brothers and Sisters of The Revolution, I am writing to share with you some various maintenance tasks I have completed. I still need to pull the engine and I have been reading that some people have had success pulling the engine with the Quick Jacks. I had the opportunity to borrow my friends QJ. I found them to be very handy but limited what I could do. I know the new ones allow for greater height. These ones are older and the only way to lift the car we found was to do them in the reverse, which I wouldn't trust for an engine out. Positioning of them on the frame is limited due to the lifting pads have only so much area to work with. Still, we got the car in the air. Image Unavailable, Please Login Now we drain the oil. Dave Rocks has a great guide on lifting the car and also, one for the oil change. Image Unavailable, Please Login The area below the oil reservoir will never rust. I think if we got a wide enough flexible hose we can stick it in there as a shield to stop the oil from getting all over. Image Unavailable, Please Login I am now using Amsoil 10W-40 Premium Protection Motor Oil, which has zinc content similar to our OE oil. https://www.amsoil.com/p/amsoil-premium-protection-10w-40-100-synthetic-motor-oil-amo/ It is a definite recommend. Image Unavailable, Please Login Next, I drained my gearbox oil. It was filthy and didn't smell very strong. I'm sure it hasn't been changed in a few services. I have only put 1k miles on my car since I owned it. It shouldn't be this dirty. Only one chunk on the plug. I suppose that's better than more. Image Unavailable, Please Login Now we must fill with fresh gear oil. I am using Amsoil Manual Transmission and Transaxle Gear Lube 75W90 (GL4). https://www.amsoil.com/p/amsoil-75w-90-manual-transmission-transaxle-gear-lube-mtg/ I suspect many of you will be curious about this gear lube. My gear shifts feel noticeably better. Not a whole lot but they do feel better. The biggest improvement is my 1-2 shift when cold. There is still some difficulty but its a massive improvement. Once my gearbox warms up it goes quite well. No chatter from the differential either. Please keep in mind my perspective. I have put 1,000 miles on my car in 8 years. You may have a more informed opinion than me. Anyways... Now it is time to do the coolant. First I am going to check the coolant currently in the car. I need to make sure it hasn't gone acidic (I know it hasn't but it's important to make sure). Image Unavailable, Please Login We are good. I had difficulty draining all the coolant. I could only get about a gallon out. I know you can open up the drain plugs on the block but I really didn't want to risk opening a big can of worms. Instead I just flushed it twice. Image Unavailable, Please Login It is important to use the right coolant, as the wrong one can irritate the seals of the water pump, among other things. I am using Zerex by Valvoline G48 . Please ignore the other coolant in the picture. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login I used a vacuum filler to fill it, and it worked great. Sadly I did not take any pictures but its pretty straightforward. Just induce a vacuum and suck the coolant in. This way there are very few air bubbles. I never had any issue. The car just self bled everything else. Put the heater on, fan on 2 and the stop button out and let her run and get up to temp. Then let her cool down and see if you need to fill. Next, I need to adjust my gear linkage. I was not successful to my liking. You can see how my gear lever isn't exactly in the center. Image Unavailable, Please Login And that was as good as I can get. My car is an early car and does not have the set screws to adjust left and right. I can only loosen the jam nut and slightly "pre-load" left or right.
Image Unavailable, Please Login Err, sorry you can't see what I am talking about. Anyways, it's adjusted pretty much as good as it will get. Time to move on. A long time ago I needed to adjust my side intake as it was rubbing on the fender extension. There is a very tight clearance. I was in a jam. I had a car show the next day. My friend was over and we came up with using washers to shim it. I was worried about them rusting and thankfully they didn't. I replaced them with stainless steel, which is compatible with cadmium plating, which I believe the original shims are. Image Unavailable, Please Login Removal is easy. Just two nuts on the inside by the front fender, hex screws along the side underneath the intake and two nuts underneath. Oh and one turning the wrench. Image Unavailable, Please Login The old shims on top of the factory ones. Oh the worries I had about it rusting. I am glad it was just senseless worry. Now we move to the battery. I wanted to change out my tender pigtail wiring because I wanted one with a fuse on it. Image Unavailable, Please Login There is just enough room to get a couple wires between the grommet and negative battery cable that goes up and underneath the washer bottle. I need to have more wiring so I extended it by splicing in a CTEK comfort connect extension cable. Additional bonus points for it being 100% CTEK, sans the butt connectors. There is just enough room to get the wires through the gromet for the negative battery cable. It will come up under the washer bottle. I just left my old wire in place, taped the new wire behind the old one, and pulled it through so I wouldn't have to fish for it. There won't be enough room in there for the actual connector, so we must add another butt connection there, too. Image Unavailable, Please Login The new CTEK connectors have the built in indicator to show battery health. I think that would be useful in quickly diagnosing an electrical problem out on the road, on a car that tends to go through alternators... Now we have to put the wheel back on. Dave Rocks makes these wheel guides that are the bees knees. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login I can't recommend those enough. Everyone should have a set. Now it's time to test out my car! Not a bad angle on this thing. I can't stop staring. Image Unavailable, Please Login I ran into a 575 SA. We waved and honked our air horns in true Ferrari nerd fashion. Image Unavailable, Please Login We must stop at the gun store. This is America after all. Image Unavailable, Please Login All in all I am pleased with the fluids I used. I 100% recommend the Amsoil engine oil. The gear lube I also am pleased with. I am certainly not pleased at not being able to adjust my shift lever. I wonder if it is because that gasket below the shift gate is broken and causing it to sag to one side? We will find out some day. Right now my car is now sleeping for the rest of the year.
