Hardest Danged Oil Change EVER!

Wow!! My son and I have finally gotten around to doing the carbon cleaning done. We Seafoamed the fuel. then I ran half a can of Seafoam through the intake. After that we pored the other half in to the oil fill spot in the valve cover. Ran it for 5 miles then we changed the oil after letting the engine cool off a little. That oil filter was the hardest danged thing to get out. It took the both of us working together to get the wrench in place then turned just enough to get the filter out by hand. I used to work for Good Year doing oil changes back in "2000". I never had such a hard time removing an oil filter. I blistered my thumb then removed the flesh from it in the process. A bloody mess it was. But we got it done. In the future I will pay someone else to loose the flesh off of their thumb.

You need an oil filter socket, and adjustable angle head ratchet. It also helps a lot of you remove the support brace from the intake manifold... Tons more room

^ yes.

You can also massage things out of the way to reach the filter from above. I did this on my 1.6 and the whole process from wheels up to wheels down is 20 minutes.

You can also use a filter for a V6 Probe GT or V6 MX6, which is the same filter, but longer.

Thank you for the help guys. But I think i'm still going to be taking it to jiffy lube in the future. I'll still be changing the oil on my wife's Camry, My motorcycle and my daughters Fiat here at the house. I just posted this cause I felt like venting my frustration over loosing that flesh off of my thumb. I guess you can now say that I have truly pored my Blood, Sweat and Tears in to this build. :? Thank you guys for being my digital punching bags.... or sounding boards if you prefer.

Buy a Royal Purple or Amsoil filter and change it every 3 or so years

I've never had any major issues removing the filter! Sometimes it's a pain to get to, but not bad enough to have someone else do the oil change for me!

Sounds like a bad first experience but don't let it deter you. I always managed fine by reaching down from above and unscrewing the filter by hand and that is because I was the one who did it before. My first time was like yours though. Somebody stuck that filter on with 300 ft. lbs. of torque requiring me to go buy a filter socket. Same with the drain bolt. It's just a drain, no need to treat it like a head bolt.

remove that stupid intake brace. that is the thing that really made me mad and made my oil changes take forever. once I read that Flyin Miata removed theirs on their cars and they had no issues with them for the thousands of miles they drove, I removed mine and threw it away. makes oil changing so much easier. I have no problem changing my oil anymore.

I don't know if I'd take that advice from a Marine. Lock a Marine in a room with a bowling ball and it becomes either missing, stolen or broken. Now imagine a Marine working on your Miata....

1981 IH Scout Turbo Diesel. Holds 11 quarts of the nasty, black oil. For some awesome reason they decided to mount a canister filter upside down and only accessible from underneath. It also was positioned to dump it's entire 1 qt capacity directly on the front pumpkin. No way to catch it or stop it. The only time I did it, I came out covered in that crap. Oil in the hair and face covered. Had to throw away the clothes I was wearing. Washed my hair with Tide and dish washing soap. Yeah, never did that again.

I would see the guy at Jiffy Lube come out of the pit in that exact same state every time I took it in. Always made sure to give him a tip since his day was done at that point.

First oil change i did i installed this to prevent this sort of issue:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...psobxfpct4.jpg

On my LS1, the filter is so tight to the oil pan that I can't get filter wrenches to work and cap style wrenches won't fit so I pretty much resorted to using K&N filters with the nut for easy removal.

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Originally Posted by Satisaii

1981 IH Scout Turbo Diesel. Holds 11 quarts of the nasty, black oil. For some awesome reason they decided to mount a canister filter upside down and only accessible from underneath. It also was positioned to dump it's entire 1 qt capacity directly on the front pumpkin. No way to catch it or stop it. The only time I did it, I came out covered in that crap. Oil in the hair and face covered. Had to throw away the clothes I was wearing. Washed my hair with Tide and dish washing soap. Yeah, never did that again.

I would see the guy at Jiffy Lube come out of the pit in that exact same state every time I took it in. Always made sure to give him a tip since his day was done at that point.

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Thats just funny. I don't care who you are.

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Originally Posted by Greasemonkey2000

First oil change i did i installed this to prevent this sort of issue:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...psobxfpct4.jpg

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I like that.

1: remove the intake manifold brace.
2: when installing a filter, just screw it on as tight as you can with your bare hand (I have NEVER had a drop leak from this).
3: Buy the longer MX6 GT filter.
4: put on some rubber gloves to fairly easily remove the filter by hand.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Circuit Dreaming

1: remove the intake manifold brace.
2: when installing a filter, just screw it on as tight as you can with your bare hand (I have NEVER had a drop leak from this).
3: Buy the longer MX6 GT filter.
4: put on some rubber gloves to fairly easily remove the filter by hand.

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Hey bro, did you miss the part where I said that I used to do oil changes at Good Year? I have even been doing my own oil changes on my mom's, friends and my own cars since "96". Other than removing the intake brace, everything you said is pretty much elementary. But who knows, I could be having a blond moment so keep the simple stuff coming. Thank you for the help.

You post a thread asking how to make an oil filter change easier, so I provide all the necessary steps required to make the removal/install of our oil filters a 30 second job. Not everyone else knows you do not need to tighten filters super tight, nor does everyone know that rubber gloves would make removing the filter way easier as well. If you are a new Miata owner, you certainly would not know that you can buy a longer filter, and that you can remove a brace right in front of the oil filter with no found ill effects. Forum posts aren't meant to just help you, as others will search "how to change a Mata oil filter" and find this in the future. Posts like this have the possibility to help many others. Not everyone is a master oil change mechanic or something.

I too loose a bit of blood and scrape my forearms changing my oil, but I do not trust anyone else to do the job.

If you don't have rubber gloves to help with grippingthe filter, try a piece of course sandpaper. Digs in andgives a solid grip.

I use the Purolator synthetic filters with the textured outside. Easy to grip and unscrew

I got the Fram with a gritty back side. And this one isn't over tightened. Maybe the next change wont be so bad. Rubber gloves do me no good what so ever. Check out my URL. www.facebook.com/terry.chastain.94 . It will become clear why if you look at my photo's. I have no fingers on the right hand and only two on the left.

I can't figure out why more manufacturers don't use a grippy paint on their filters...unless it's that it costs 2 cents more to manufacture.