The Ride Report

Being the cheap bastard that I am, I’m loathe the pay the dealer to do any work that I can do myself. I install my own exhausts, I change out my own handlebars, I wired my GPS into my accessory circuit — I like to do it myself. Regular maintenance items are obviously included in that — but that’s where I get in trouble. Changing the oil is my Kryptonite.

I changed my oil yesterday in preparation for a trip to Northern California tomorrow, and as usual it’s taken me multiple passes to get it right. This time around I overfilled it and now I’ve got oil puking out of the air intake, so I spent some time this evening draining some oil out, and then adding some more back in because I drained too much out. I just can’t get it right: too much in, then too much out, and now it’s back to where I think it should be … and I could swear I’ve re-added exactly as much as I drained. But hey, the dipstick’s happy now. I hope. Cross your fingers. But I got off easy this time. The last time I changed my oil I had to do it twice, twice. Yes, that’s two twices. Let me ‘splain…

I was changing my oil, see? First I pulled the drain plug and drained it all out. Then I went to remove the filter. But it was stuck. Like, welded-on stuck. The dealer had changed the oil last when I had my cam chain tensioners replaced, and they had obviously put the filter on with an impact wrench and Loc-tite. I ultimately went through not one, not two, and not three, but four different filter wrenches and I still could not get it off. I was leaving for a trip to Hollister the next morning and didn’t have time to deal with it, so I gave up on changing the filter, filled her up with the new oil, and resolved to get it right when I got back.

On returning from Hollister I tried to change the oil again. I drained the old oil, filled up with new oil, then went to work on removing the oil filter. I started the job with the determination that I was getting it off this time no matter what. Well, I’m here to tell you that determination will only take you so far. None of my four oil filter wrenches would budge it. None of my extensive collection of curse words would budge it. That filter was not coming off. Or so it thought. I was determined, remember?

Enter daddy’s little helper: a screwdriver. I stabbed the shit out of that filter, skewering it and then using the screwdriver as a handle, cranking it off an inch at a time. It was a scene straight out of Psycho, if Janet Leigh had been an oil filter and the knife had been a screwdriver and the blood had been oil and the shower had been a Road Glide and I had been Norman Bates. Aside from those minor differences, it was exactly the same. And at the end of the movie I got the filter off and put it in the trash instead of in the trunk of a Ford Falcon.

And that’s the story of how I ended up changing my oil twice twice. It only took me 1.5 tries this time, so I’m getting better at it.