I just registered on this board, I had never in my dreams imagined there was a actual Stage One forum out there, but here I am. Pretty cool, 116 members and all.
Anyway, I have just resurrected the 3.5 litre beast in my Stage One after six years (or so) of sleep. So I bought some new (semi synthetical) oil and an oil filter, from the local car parts lot (Biltema, for those who know). Well, it seems like the filter I got (which originally is for 4-cylinder Volvo cars, and supposedly some diesel Toyota engines) is a little different from the unit which was mounted earlier.
The new filter has about 1/3 less capacity, six (versus eight) flow holes, one turn of thread area less, and seems to have a different (more modern?) construction inside. I took this picture to make it a little easier for you:
So, question is, is it totally sound to use the filter I have bought? Could there be any possible ill effects from using it?
Then on to the next issue I have. You see, I decided to pull the oil pan when I had drained of the old oil, and I was met by a tragic view. The Land Rover engineers have for some rather dumb reason painted the inside of the pan, and to make matters worse, with a terrible paint that is flaking off (as a result of heat, I guess). I took a picture here also:
As you can see, the area at the rear (of the engine) is flaking off. Not only above, but also under the splash plate (which is an area very hard to reach). The rest of the missing paint is removed intentionally somehow.
The best thing, of course, would be to sandblast the whole thing, but I unfortunately don’t have the access to such equipment. I however, used a (water) pressure washer first, this stripped off some paint and all the oil/sludge debris. Then I proceeded with a wire brush to remove the excess from the cork seal, this seemed to clean the metal pretty decently, as you can see.
And theeeen comes the question, what would you do with the rest of the paint? My options are to leave it as now, or use the wire brush on the top part (which is reachable) and strip it all off. (Would the unreachable paint under the plate have a bigger chance of falling off if this procedure is applied?) Also, if you have a suggestion on how to remove any of the paint (that didn’t come off with the pressure washer) on the back wall, under the plate, please speak up.
I assume hot motor oil (how hot warm are we talking?) will have a very different effect on the paint than what water under pressure has? The reason about all the fuss is that I would preferably avoid having paint leavings pumped around in the motor, destroying machined surfaces, etc. The filter on the oil pickup was surprisingly fine, alas.
So, please let me know your thoughts on this.
Thanks!
