I’m hoping that this car will start. Nik confirmed that it started and moved under its own power many months ago, but nothing good happens in the months after a car floods and then sits.
Before turning the key, though, it seemed a good idea to change the oil and hope there’s nothing terrible in it. Like coolant. Or metal. Or mold. Can oil mold?
Anyhow, I bravely googled “best motor oil” and was met with pretty much exactly what you’d expect.
Anger.
Disagreement.
For just about any oil you might think of, you can seemingly find extremely passionate arguments saying that’s the best. And the worst.
So I deferred to Nik, who works for ExxonMobil and has access to some tasty behind-the-scenes testing of motor oils.
He told me that, for the money, go with Mobil 1 0W-40 European Formula. It’s less than $25 for 5 quarts at Walmart.
So I did.
Step 1: drain the oil and hope to not see funkiness.
Yaaaaaayyyy
No water or metal or chunks in the oil = big win.
New filter and new oil in with no drama, so I reinstalled a fresh battery that Nik had already picked up from Costco. The area around the battery tray is looking pretty nasty, but I’m hesitant to do much about it. It really needs disassembled and cleaned to really remediate this sort of stuff.
Ick
That’s all mostly covered by the battery so I’m going to pretend it’s not there.
On to the interior!
This is fine.
The interior disassembly left the wiring situation a bit of a mess, so there’s a bit to sort here.
I made some okay progress figuring out where a lot of the stuff goes, then plugging in and tucking away sections of wire.
I promise this is better.
Definitely tidier here. Tidyer? Tidy-er?
I was happy enough that I hooked up the battery and turned the key.
IT STARTED!
Actually it was such a low key affair, the video isn’t even worth uploading. It sounds like a stock Subaru starting.
I suppose I might have tried driving it, but as you can see, there are no seats.
But not for long, Nik made me a deal on some Sparco Pro 2000’s that he’s never used, so I’ll get those in soon.
And then test drive!
Now to just figure out how to get these mounted in the car…
