Sunday, July 27, 2008

I replaced my fuel filter!!

Now that in itself isn't really all that impressive until you consider the source. I suppose I could blame this on not being raised by my father, but I've never really done much of anything under the hood of my car beyond adding oil and coolant. I did an oil change once under the supervision of a friend of mine... but this is to me a major accomplishment. I will admit that the entire operation involved basically just removing 5 bolts (two of which attached the fuel lines), replacing the filter and then putting it back together, but if you read the section on fuel filters in the 1994 Honda Civic EX owners manual it merely says "Have a qualified service technician replace your filter after 60,000 miles." I had to search online for some better instructions.

The biggest challenge was just getting the two fuel line bolts to come off as they were pretty well frozen in place. I was using the right sized wrenches but it was starting to strip the bolts anyway so I ended up using a lot of WD40 and vice grips which ultimately did the trick. Also I should mention that it took me two tries. The first $12 filter was apparently just for practice (after I got it put on, I overtightened the bolt to the gas line and I actually tore part of the filter so it squirted gas out each time I tried to start the car... the second filter worked as I learned to be gentle and now my car starts.)

Also I saw Dark Knight yesterday... incredible movie! The Angry Coder posted essentially the same review I'd have posted so you can read about it there. Man, the pencil trick... a truly great way to fully introduce the main villain.

1 comment:

The Angry Coder said...

Dude that's awesome! You're reallying becoming quite a man ;-) Cranking down those tools by hand will strengthen your grip quite a bit. I wonder how that will effect your drumming.