Oil change + oil filter + spark plugs + cabin filter

Time to get the car finally a small service. So I ordered a package at Autodoc with the following items:

UFI oil filter
UFI air filter 
Magneti Marelli spark plugs
Valeo cabin filter

And via a local shop I bought this 5 liter oil can 10W40 brand Kroon

So up the ramp

And removing the protection cover. This was another small challenge as it was fiddled together, pieces broken off, pop rivets, stuck screws. So I needed the drill, grinder and dremel to had it removed.

I even found a battery bracket mounting holder in it. And a lot of dirt of course. On this photo you can see it does have the apparently originial protection cushions on it. Afterwards I cleaned the whole cover with the high pressure cleaner and the material came off. I'm intending to repair this cover so it can mounted normally again and provide the protection.

And then drain the oil, which went easy. 

And removing the oil filter, which went easy as well. Judging by the protection cover and the rust on the oil filter this hasn't been done for ages:

And the new UFI filter. Was pleasantly surprise to see it had a Magneti Marelli oil filter. 

And of course filling up with new oil. When removing the oil cap I spotted this "rubber" dot in the opening. Not sure what it is but I left it. Perhaps some sealant or gasket. I felt pretty firm. Not sure what happened there. I will definatley remember this and have it double checked another time.   

Turned out the 5 liter was just not enough. So I had to go back and bought another liter, but I required only 0,5 liter more. So now I have some spare in the boot.

 All good, so replacing the spark plugs. Judging by the cover screws this hasn't been touched either for ages

Removing the bobines went easy. But then, shocker! the first spark plug was drenched in oil!

Not sure what happened there but I feared the most. Then unscrewing the spark plug which went very easy as it was not tightened at all. Perhaps that was the reason for the oil to manifest ???

The other spark plugs were fine but each of them didn't require much force to unscrew. Also the spark plugs that came out were original Lancia plugs by Champion. Very cool. I had them replaced by Magneti Marelli

All done and all good so far. I will definately check the 1st spak plug for oil next week or so. 

So time to replace the cabin / interior filter. Easy job, removing the two covers:

And here you go, a very dirty cabin filter. One small section on the bottom felt a little sticky wet though. I hope not thats caused by a leaky heater radiator. I noticed the coolant required a little refill. So I will keep an eye on this as well. So far there is no "coolant smell" in the car. 

And replaced with a new one:

Very happy with this, glad I have done this now. I hope the oil at the 1st spark plug was caused by not fitted tight. The thread itself felt good, so I can't think off anything else for now, or perhaps some hairline crack in the valve cover? As said, I will have this checked again next week.

The air filter needs to wait for next week as well. But on my return today the car drove fantastic again.

For the records:

6 liter oil = € 43,76

1 air filter + 1 cabin filter + 1 oil filter + 5 spark plugs + shipping = € 60,69

So total costs for this service round = € 104,45

milleage: 212.000 km

New gear knob and gear stick gaiter

 As mentioned earlier, when I wanted to change the console display last year or so the gear stick gaiter snapped and as such wasn't clipped firm anymore. Not a big deal but I wanted to have this fixed. So I sourced it from my Kappa coupe. 

Another item was the ugly gear knob. I had a original spare gear knob available as at the time I bought two. One went into the Kappa coupe and now is the right moment to have this upgraded as well.

Removed the broken stick gaiter first, easy:

Added the new stick gaiter. Easy. And removing the gear knob, that went pretty easy well, didn't expect that:

Still had to remove the inner plastic holder cap but with a bit of fiddling and patience it became loose and came off  as well:

And here we have the new ricambi originali gear knob 0113361960  (maybe that should be nr: 150628060)

And mounted with a soft hammer:

This is another nice improvement. A easy and rewarding job. It looks good and it holds good and it shifts good. 

And there was light

I had spotted this before, some indication lights on some parts of the dashboard were of, mainly the lighting at both vent controls and the on the dashboard. So I ordered 10 T5 12V 1.2 W lightbulbs.

Both sides replaced:

And the ones in front console as well

And this is how it looks like in the evening, ain't that lovely. These small jobs are so easy and so rewarding :-) 

vibration rattle noise at passenger side

Something that was intermittent playing up, pending on the road surface or specific revving of the engine. Sometimes it does manifest when it runs stationairy. And it did happen last week again, so I was able to find out where it was coming from. At first I thought it was coming from the glove box. So I filmed it with the following result:

It was coming from the airbag. It only needs a slight touch to stop the rattle. So I figured it was a loose screw or something else from metal to metal. So time to open it up and remove the glove box compartment. The first thing I noticed was a missing cap on the top, exposing one screw - which turned out to be one of the 2 screws that holds the airbag unit:

Then I noticed all the other mounting screws for the glovebox are missing - 6 in total.

So it's only holding it together with one screw in the back. Clearly they have been in this area before as well. I suppose for installing the radio and telephone carkit, etc. Typical all these screws and cover cap are missing.

With the glovebox removed I could have a further look, all looking good though and all screws tight. Only one wire (red) with a connector and a metal clipholder is loose. I can't figure out where the metal clipholder needs to be fitted? 

Then unscrewing the airbag unit, it came out pretty easy:

I had everything fully inspected and all screws are tight and could not detect what potentially is causing this vibration rattle.

So I have put everything together and hope this noise is gone on the next drive. So watch this space :-)

Update: I have driven the car for a couple of days and the rattle noise is gone :-)  Not sure what did the trick though ...

Chrome polishing

I noticed the chrome stips at the window surrounding were all a bit dirty and had small spots. As I still had a small can of polish so I made an attempt to have this improved.

The result was very minimal but at least I tried

All the chrome door handles are unfortunately corroded. I might consider to have them replaced for good clean ones ... for now I leave it as is.

Only the chrome strip on the back had the best result.

Air blower stopped working

I had different things planned to do on the car today. But yesterday the air blower stopped working unexpected. I was suspecting a broken fuse and I was right. I spotted one fuse which was slightly out of position, remarkable. Also I noticed it was place upside down, at least the nr 30 was upside down, despite this does not make a difference in functionality: 

I removed it using the orange pulling tool which was luckily still in the fusebox compartment:

Yikes! :

Unfortunately there were no 30A spares in the compartment, of course all the others were available, 5A, 10A, 15A .. sigh. So I simply reused a 30A fuse temporary being in use for a different service. Checked it and of course the blower was working again.

I thought I had some spare fuses on stock but couldn't localize them. So I quickly drove to the Shell gasstation but they had none available. On to the next gassstation. They had a small kit available with a selection of modern small fuses. Sigh. Back home I searched the whole lot again and found them, including a box with only 30A fuses :-)

So I replaced it and also put 2 spares in the empty reserve slots. All looking good again: