For for the first time in a long time, I’ve had a chance to do a little automotive maintenance. Fritz was overdue for an oil change according to the windshield sticker. (I know I haven’t ever changed it) The oil pan was surrounded by a thick plastic pan with gaskets— It’s apparent purpose is to collect oil and let it seep out of all areas to create a bigger mess. That was the first part to go in my ‘not gonna go back on this car’ pile. It uses a massive oil filter, and it is plenty hard to get to.
Next thing I wanted to tackle was to clean out the intake manifold. These engines are bad about clogging up the manifold to the point it chokes off the incoming air. This is a result of the oily engine blow-by mixed with the sooty EGR gas. Getting everything off to get to the manifold bolts was bad enough, but getting to them was entirely harder than it needed to be. I ran into a part I’ve never seen before: an EGR cooler. It looks expensive. Check out the pictures below to see how much gunk was built up. It was pretty bad. I got it all cleaned up and put back together… now I can move on to the next thing that needs fixin’ on Fritz.
“In the midst of Congressional races around the country, one stands out to techies. Thomas Massie, an MIT whiz kid who pioneered touch-based interfaces and founded SensAble Technologies in the 1990s, is the favorite to win the Republican nomination in his Kentucky district next week. SensAble was recently sold on the cheap, but in a new exclusive, Massie explains why he left the haptics firm years ago to lead a simpler life of farming, family, and guns — lots of guns. Along the way he built a solar-powered, off-the-grid house and became a local hero of the Tea Party. Now Massie is leading the charge to get more engineers into politics, and if he wins, he could be a force to be reckoned with in Washington, DC.” (from 
I’ve been holding off from forming an opinion about the whole topic of 
