This has been posted before, but some people forget and we also have a bunch of Newbies on board these days, some without much experience with these engines.
I’m in the middle of waking Pearl up from her 4 month slumber (she always looks the better for her beauty rest). This involves an oil and filter change, making sure she hasn’t gained any unexpected field-mouse “guests” over the winter and so forth. I think I chased most mice out of the garage because my next door neighbor has had to clean out his Honda air cleaners regularly all winter……
Anyway, there are couple of extra things I do with an oil change and thought I would share them (again) for the group.
- My spin-on oil filter mounts with the threads and opening straight up, by design. Before I spin the new filter on I slowly pour about a quart of oil into the center hole of the filter, letting it settle and bubble air out until it won’t take any more, then trace a little fresh oil around the rubber O-ring. Then I spin it onto the filter mount. This eliminates the engine’s oil pump from having to fill the filter canister with a quart of oil when first starting the engine and prevents pumping a lot of air into the engine oil passages on first start-up. All this prevents the engine from starving for oil when started up and causing premature bearing wear. Sneaky, huh?
- About that first start-up after an oil change - Once the oil’s changed and everything is ready to rock, I pull the coil’s center wire out of the distributer so that the engine can’t start, then hit the key and let the starter turn over long enough to build oil pressure in the engine and for the oil pressure light on the dash to go out, then stop. This usually takes less than ten seconds and maybe turns the engine over 10 - 15 revs. Doing this get oil into the bearings so everything will be fine when you really start the engine. Replace the coil wire on the distributer and you’re good to go while minimizing any bearing wear.
Happy Spring, drivers!
