This is just a bunch of rambling and a bit of venting, nothing terribly important. For whatever reason, winter always sucks for me. For example, this year (actually, 2 days ago), I found out my grandfather has inoperable cancer. A bit worse than most years, but typical nonetheless. Right about now, I'm just trying to keep busy so I don't brood too much. All my rambling below is part of that. Not looking for pity, just explaining the disjointed babbling I'm about to do.

So this morning I decided to poke around on my cars a bit to get my mind off things. After all the hobbyist diagnosis I've done on the emissions service CEL my V8V (including a couple thousand dollars worth of parts and labor), I've decided it's most likely a faulty gas cap. Just a few months ago I had the same problem on my 4Runner. A brand new $5 gas cap later all my 4Runner's problems were solved (nothing noticeable, just the myriad of warning lights went away). I figured I might as well replace my V8V's gas cap and see if the fixes it. It is, after all, kinda loose and easy to remove so maybe it's leaking. But this isn't a $5 Toyota gas cap we're talking about here. It's over $350. Over three hundred and fifty dollars for a part that does the same thing as the one costing five. Needless to say, I'm not terribly fond of dropping that much cash on it just yet. So instead, I figured I'd mess around with it. If it's the problem, I'll have to replace it anyway, right? So why not hit it with a stick and see what happens.

A while back, AM offered a rebuild kit to fix the large number of faulty gas caps they'd put on cars. Supposedly this kit isn't offered anymore. But if the gas cap can be rebuilt, that means it can be taken apart. So I did. There 'core' of the gas cap has a pair of springs in it, contained within pressed-in housings. The inner-most hosing is more likely to break than come out, and without replacement parts, I didn't want to risk it. (Note: While poking at that part of the assembly to see if it'd come apart, I did break another piece of the assembly, but it's just one of several tabs that allow for the 'clicking' upon tightening the gas cap after filling, so I'm assuming it won't have a material effect on anything.) I did spray some cleaner into that housing to clean it out a bit, though. The outer-most spring housing is easier to pop out. The spring is pretty weak, so if the gas cap is leaking, this might be the culprit. (I have absolutely no evidence to back this up aside from 4 margaritas worth of logical reasoning.) I put a couple washers into the housing to compress the spring a bit, assuming that this will effectively stiffen the valve and make it more difficult to open, thereby lessening the chance of a leak (5th-level margarita reasoning). I haven't driven the car yet so I have no idea if I've made things better or worse. I'm assuming better because reasons.

Of course, now that I think about it, those two springs push against each other. The spring I reinforced is pushing outward, making it more likely that the valve is open. That makes things worse. Damnit. Good thing I haven't driven the car yet so I have no idea if I've made things better or worse. I'm assuming worse because new reasons. I should probably fix that.

After reassembling my gas cap, I popped the hood on my 4Runner to empty out the makeshift catch can I installed on it. Apparently my engine is full of Starbucks latte.





The dark spots in the bottom are air bubbles, not debris. It's thick and foamy. I changed my oil only a couple hundred miles ago and it looked like normal used oil. It's probably just condensation built up in it and mixing with the oil it collected. Still, a bit disconcerting seeing as these engines have issues with their head gaskets as they approach 150k miles and I'm at 142k. My coolant level is fine, so it isn't sucking down coolant. So that's nice. I put the makeshift catch can on just to see how effective adding a catch can would be. Looks like it's doing its job quite well.

So back to Aston Martins...

It's time for my annual service and I've decided to give it a go on my own. I'll be doing my engine oil, transmission fluid, and brake fluid. I did a bit of research on non-OEM supplies for this (namely the oil filter, engine/gear oils, and brake fluid), but since Stuart is now selling OEM Aston stuff, I'm hoping he'll give me a banging deal on the stuff I need *cough* hook me up *cough*. I've also got a friend that works at the local BMW dealership. BMW uses Castrol TWS in their M cars. Aston also uses it in their manual transmissions. That's what's going in my V8V's manual transmission. I'm going to see if my buddy will pilfer the oil for me in exchange for a few bucks under the table. (Don't get in a hissy, I'm just kidding... I'm not going to pay him.)

One question I haven't gotten an answer for yet is about the rear diff. The AM workshop manual specifies:
Gearbox oil - Shell Transaxle Oil 75w90
Final drive oil - Mobil 1 80w140
But I thought the transaxle housed both of those. Am I missing something here?

About the gear oil, I found Castrol Limited Slip 75w90 for less than $10/qt. Based on what I've seen in my amateur-at-best oil analysis, this stuff should work just fine.

I used to pretty much live in my garage and I miss wrenching on cars every weekend. I used to make pretty in-depth DIY guides for cars, and I think it'd be a lot of help if I were to do a few for Astons, too. I'll do the engine oil and gear oil changes for sure. Maybe the brake fluid flush, too. I need to get under my car and see what kind of brake lines V8Vs have. If they're just rubber, I'll upgrade them to braided stainless steel lines at the same time when I do the fluid, and I'll post a DIY on the whole process.

Any other DIYs people can think of?

 

Winter sucks.