Jay Lagare

My car’s oil pressure warning light came up while I was driving along South Superhighway (SSH) last week. That’s a pretty distressing event so I had it checked right away. The diagnosis was leaking spark plug oil seals. I took a look at the oil seals myself and saw one that was obviously cracked and wrongly installed. It looked like something I could do since I’ve already seen mechanics opening the valve cover and doing stuff. In fact, one of them probably mis-installed and cracked the leaking spark plug oil seal in the first place. So I decided to take the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) route.

I did the rounds of the stores and grabbed a bunch of supplies and equipment: spark plug tool, screwdrivers, spark plug oil seals, liquid gasket, carb cleaner, and electronics cleaner. The plan is to remove the spark plugs, spray carb cleaner into the spark plug wells to clean the engine oil that leaked into the spark plug wells, spray electronics cleaner into the spark plug connectors, remove the valve cover, replace spark plug oil seals, reseal the valve cover, and finally put in new spark plugs.

First thing in the morning, I grabbed my supplies and equipment and got to work. I tried removing the spark plugs using my spanking new spark plug tool. They won’t budge!!! I was finally able to extract one after much straining and sweating. But the tool’s handle broke when I tried extracting another one. So it was down to just removing the valve cover, replacing the spark plug oil seals, and resealing the valve cover. These I did with no further incident.

Later, I went to a nearby gas station and asked the friendly neighborhood resident mechanic to extract the spark plugs, clean them with gasoline, clean the spark plug wells and connector with compressed air (instead of carb cleaner and electronics cleaner), and reinstall the spark plugs. All done in a few minutes. Experience definitely helps. A lot.

In the end, although I wasn’t exactly able to accomplish the plan myself, I was able to do half of it. And it was fun! :)

I’ve always wondered what oversteer and understeer was. My car geek friend Eric “Ayrton” tried to explain it to me: Oversteer is when the vehicle turns much more than was desired by the driver. Understeer is the exact opposite. But I couldn’t quite comprehend. I guess it requires experience. Last saturday, I had a front strut tower bar (STB) installed on the car. Doing this is supposed to improve responsiveness especially when taking corners by slightly increasing oversteer . I didn’t feel any difference. That is until yesterday when I took a turn and was a bit surprised when the car turned more than usual. Oversteer! And I guess everything else before that was understeer. Haha. Now I get it :P I quickly compensated and went on my merry way.