Strangely Unfamiliar - First Oil Change

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. When I first bought the car I checked the oil level and color. It had plenty of oil, but it looked new, though that told me nothing about the condition of the engine. After a month or so of owning the car and seeing regular but not extreme evidence of oil drips I figured it would be smart to check the oil level again. To my horror I discovered I was already low on oil, and the oil was already looking "used".  At this point I might have put a few hundred miles at most on the car. I suppose the previous owner could have just topped up on oil without changing the filter, so it was time to tackle the first oil change.

Like no oil filter I've ever seen...

Now, this is the one piece of car maintenance that I had the most experience with.  My first two or three cars I routinely changed my own oil until I found that the newer ultra-reliable Japanese cars I was buying required your arm to have two elbows to contort sufficiently through the jigsaw puzzle engine to get the oil filter out. At that point I left the oil changes to the "experts" who had power tools and lifts for better access (and began regularly abusing cars by skipping oil changes when I got busy).

Unfortunately this was like no oil change I'd ever seen.  Apparently the invention of the standard spin on type oil filter most of us are familiar with did not occur until the mid-50s and hadn't yet made it to the MG. My car has a permanent metal canister that holds a replaceable felt or paper filter. Less convenient, but still didn't seem like a big deal.  And as you can predict by now I kind of like the uniqueness factor.

I ordered a filter and a spare from Moss Motors and they arrived the next day (they ship from Richmond, so I get next day delivery for standard Ground prices).  I researched oil options and took Barney "MGA Guru" Gaylord's advice to get the cheapest 10W40 oil I could find and not worry about it. Oil Trivia - did you know the "W" stands for Winter and the first number tells you the equivalent weight that the oil behaves as when it's cold? Standard weight oil (which you can hardly buy anymore) would be so thick in cold weather that it was hard to get the car running so people had to change oil weight/thickness/viscosity with the seasons. I looked up in my show manual how much oil my engine needs to fill back up from empty, and I was ready to go (or so I thought).

The scene of the crime. Just on the other side of the black
drain pan it looked like the Exxon Valdez disaster.

I warmed the car up to help the oil drain faster, shut the engine off and jacked the car up onto sturdy stands under the front suspension.  I placed the plastic drain pail under the drain plug carefully so that the final drips would just land on the close end of the opening and the first flow should have plenty of room to form its nice graceful arc from the drain plug. This wasn't my first time at the rodeo. I put my wrench on the drain plug, and used a short length of pipe to give a little extra persuasion. The plug loosened up nicely I spun it the rest of the way off by hand. Unfortunately, the oil shot just past the edge of the drain pail and I soaked the floor in dirty engine oil until I shifted the pan.  First the Exxon Valdez, then the spill in the Gulf, now this. Oh well, put some cardboard on the floor and get on with it.

To be continued...