We Shall Never Speak of This Again

Our lawnmower wasn't starting and was in need of its yearly maintenance so I went up to Lowes and put on my "I have no idea what I'm doing" face and asked for help finding all the stuff I needed. I love Lowes! They are always so helpful, and it's one of the few places I know I can trust the information I get. So I got a new fuel filter, new spark plug, new air filter, new oil filter, an oil pan, and new oil. I went home and was so excited! I couldn't wait to get started!

It started out SO well!



I opened up the air filter box and popped in the new one with no trouble. The old one had a colony of ants starting to move into it. Yikes! That could prove to be a problem when you want to make sure you're getting the right amount of oxygen mixed with the fuel!



Then I off the old fuel filter... No wonder I wasn't sure that the one the guy at Lowes pointed out to me was the right one. Here's what the new Fuel Filter looked like once I got it on.


Kind of a terrible picture, but isn't it beautiful!? It was so easy to change! And in the process of changing that I could drain out the old fuel that had been left sitting all winter. Note to self: next year, remember to add Fuel Stabilizer before putting it up for winter.

Then came the Spark plug. I didn't take any pictures of it. It was no problem at all...as soon as I found it. It was hiding from me under the engine cover. But gapping it, removing the old one, and replacing it was really easy.

Then I drained out the oil, which was of course easy to do. Just unscrew the drain and let it out.

Then came the problems...


This is the oil filter... I asked the man at Lowes if it was hard to change the oil filter. "No," he told me, "it just screws right off." Well good! Or so I thought.

I tried to screw it off. No luck. I went back to Lowes and bought a special wrench made for oil filters...


The oil filter snapped the tool. "Ugh! Fine! Piece of junk!" I said to myself. So I went to O'Rileys to buy a set of oil filter pliers. I talked to the man who checked me out, and he suggested that if that didn't work to try driving a screw driver through it and using that to turn it. Oh, that sounded so messy! So I went home and tried the pliers. And Bryon tried the pliers. No luck. Well dang!

We gave up for the day as the sun was down. Bright and early the next morning, okay it was more like 11, we headed out to try again. I tried the pliers again. Bryon tried the pliers again. No luck and the oil filter was beginning to get crushed.

Well fine! Let's try the screw driver method then. We tried it. It was working!!! We managed to move it two full turns! I could tell because it has those words on the side and they spun around twice. I was hopeful! We might get to mow today! Yay! Then the whole bottom ripped off the oil filter and I threw in the towel. Literally! Okay, it wasn't a towel, it was actually paper towels I was using to clean up all the spilled oil from the shredded oil filter.


That's what was left of it...

After another trip to Lowes, it was decided to give the prying it off with a flat head screwdriver method a shot. And some progress was being made when our neighbor, James, came over. His wife, Sabrina, had seen my angry rantings about the oil filter on facebook, and since he's very mechanically inclined he came over to give us a hand. They're just awesome people that way. :-D So I got out of the way and let him and Bryon try. Well he started going the wrong way...or so I thought.

"Wait," I said, "it's got to go the other way. It goes counter clockwise."

James paused for a moment and said, "It's confusing because it's upside down."

"Oh crap," said Bryon, "he's right. We were going the wrong way."

Sure enough it started moving. And it started moving very quickly. I was, um, a little chagrined to say the least...

Pretty soon, James had the whole thing off. He's the hero of the day. hehe

This is what it looked like when it came off completely.


It didn't take any time at all to get the new one on and the oil and gas back in the machine, and it was running like a dream! I, of course, took a victory lap around the yard. Not that I mowed...that still needs to be done, but we'll get there.

So there you have it. For all my awesomeness, I was turning the damn thing the wrong way! Feel free to laugh abundantly. I'll wait.

*waiting*

*waiting*

You done? No? Okay, carry on.

*waiting*

All right, you can stop now.

I would just like to take this moment to point out what a freaking hoss I am. I managed to move it 2 and a half turns around after the darn thing was already completely tight. Yeah, that's right. I'm amazing! Lame...but amazing! Or amazingly lame... Did I mention how I snapped a metal tool with my brute force while I tried to turn it the wrong way? Yeah, I know. You're totally impressed.

Oy! Okay, that was my weekend. How was yours?

DISCLAIMER: My husband would like pointed out that he was turning it the right way... Okay, fine. I pointed it out. He did, however, agree with me at some point obviously since we were both working on it together...