We thought we had it all figured out: Wait until Saturday, get our car fixed and maybe put our heads into the pacific in the meantime. Well, our little beach adventure resulted in sunburn and a headache, which left us hoping that Saturday would make up for it.
We got up early, called the guy we wanted to meet up with and headed north. Stopping for gasoline, I commenced my daily ritual of checking oil and coolant.
That’s the oil filter. The oil is supposed to go through there, so why is it smeared all over the outside then, you may ask? I don’t have a bloody clue. At least I didnt at the time of the photo. The whole underbelly of the engine seemed to be swamped with oil, but nothing seemed amiss on the dipstick. That didn’t add up at all. But it was only 30kms to the workshop, so we decided to take the risk.
Our mechanic was running late, so we passed time with stupid bets. 10$ if one jogs up the hill and gets back without stopping, 10$ back to sender if he does it too. So, either one us has got huge debt with the other or we get to train equally đ
Finally, at the shop. Timing chain replacement would usually take a whole day and requires the whole engine to be taken apart, but here there was a little cheating involved: Just take off the head cover, cut open the old chain, link the new one into it and pull it through. Bam, 40 minutes or less. In the end, we ended up staying until evening because I kept bothering the mechanic questions.
Here, that’s our engine. Not exactly ours, but the same type. Left on the bottom you can see the oil filter. On the top right, right above the rightmost pulley, you see some part with “Kayaba” or sth. similar written on it. That’s the power steering pump, in our case it had a broken o-ring. So, how did all the oil get from one side to the other? Our freshly replaced v-belts acted as a conveyor, all the oil dropping down on the passengers side was masked by old oil still there from our previous misadventures. Power steering fluid and engine oil are seperate, so that’s why we couldn’t see a change in oil level. Would have taken days for us to figure that out.
Am I allergic to cats? Yup. Does that stop me from trying to cuddle them? Not at all.
Speedo change. Finally with working rpms and mileage in one package. And finally something for us to do except watching.
Hopefully, this blog will evolve into something more focused about fun, freetime and work that brings in some money instead of devouring it… See ya soon!