Apologies for being picture-happy in the post... I'm newly in love with car stuff, and plus, I figured that this information and these pictures might be valuable to other newbies who know nothing about cars, like myself.

My friend Ryan and I spent our Super Bowl Sunday afternoon fixing my car. After much deliberation and procrastination, we were finally going to change the oil and oil filter on my 95 Maxima SE, and replace the headlight and foglight bulbs while we were at it. Now, keep in mind that both Ryan and I are extremely novice car enthusiasts, and have pretty much never done anything with cars whatsoever on our own, except for driving them. He’s added coolant and oil to his beat-up old Explorer when necessary, and his Volvo prior to that, but has never actually changed oil himself, and I haven’t even had his amount of experience. We are absolutely new at this, and our goal is to become informed and capable amateurs, starting with these procedures.

First off, I drove over Highway 17 from Santa Cruz, where I’m going to school, to San Jose, where Ryan lives. We went to Kragen and picked up the toys we would need. What you see there is a bundle of a 2-ton jack, two 2-ton jack stands, a creeper and two tire chucks (not in that picture, you’ll see them in a moment) for about 35 bucks. It’s a great deal, apparently. Also in that picture are the 9004 and H3 sized Sylvania Silver Star light bulbs that I bought on eBay from j-lee_global. He’s a good seller, and has some other sizes of Silver Star bulbs too. We also picked up oil, an oil pan, and a box of disposable gloves, but those aren't as interesting.

Here's a couple of before pictures. In the second one, you can see which lights are dead; the headlight and foglight on one side. As a side note, can someone tell me what the proper name for the lights on the outsides of the headlights is? I've been calling them "corner lights", but the amber lights just below the headlights are the "corners", yes?

Anyways, we jacked the car up for some working space underneath, and removed the drain plug and let the oil drain into the oil pan. You can see in that picture how messed up the old oil is... that's a bit over 10k miles on that oil... you can bet I'll never be stupid enough to do that again. I am ashamed. We then took out the old filter. I'd never heard of the brand before, but with my inexperience that doesn't really mean anything. After letting the oil finish draining for a while, we checked the drain plug to see that it was okay and screwed it back in, and stuck the new Nissan 15208-9E000 filter where it belonged. After putting in 3 quart of Castrol GTX, I had fun revving the engine, while Ryan listened. Standing in front of the open engine bay listening to the engine going slowly from idle to 6500rpm is a religious experience. We didn't actually put in the 4th and final quart of oil until after doing the light bulbs, but that's because we're dumb, or at least I'm dumb and Ryan listened to me. In any case, we were done with the oil change, and just starting with the sense of accomplishment!

Next, we spent a while staring at the headlight assembly, trying to figure out how to start on replacing the bulbs. Eventually, we got it. I'm not wearing gloves in that picture, but I was beyond careful to not touch the glass of the new bulb with my bare hands. The foglights were harder, seeing as we were at an awkward angle trying to figure out the foglight assembly, but we figured it out. While unscrewing the plastic panels on the underside of the car to get to the foglights, we came across a rusty screw that broke off inside the hole, and had no choice but to leave it in there. That was fun... oh well, at least it wasn't something crucial, I think. Also, we discovered that the reason that foglight hadn't worked since I bought the car from a used car dealer two summers ago was that there simply was no bulb in the socket. Imagine our surprise.

Here's a picture of the lights afterwards... we were giddy enough at our accomplishments to not take systematic pictures at the end, which is why the brights are on in that picture, and not the fogs, but here's a pretty picture of one side, without flash. Beautiful. And here's an after picture of the whole car... notice that it's dark out. It took us about three hours to muddle our way through the whole procedure, including screwing around, acting confused, and cleaning up.

Now I think I'm certifiably addicted to my car... I want to change those corner lights to Silver Stars to match the other lights (what size bulbs are those, can someone tell me please?), and put clear corners on as well... and then I want to put on a performance Y-pipe and hack my airbox... but first, I need to wash, clay and wax the damned thing so that she's back to her full beauty potential.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this thread for suggestions and advice, and www.motorvate.ca for the oil change how-to that I used.

 

Welcome to the .org and welcome to the addictive life of working on your car =)

That's so bizzar that the dealer sold you a car without a bulb in that fog lamp. Did you know it didn't work before you bought the car?

Anyways, good job and good luck on your future works.

Oh yeah, and you should probabaly donate; searching will make your life a lot easier =)

 

Nope... for whatever reason, neither my dad nor I thought to check the lights when we bought it. The first time I realized that it didn't work was when one of my friends pointed it out about a month afterwards. You know how it is, you don't often see your own car's lights while they're turned on, heh.

And thanks!

 

Nice write-up!, And don't wait on that y-pipe.

 

Wow, two summers till an oil change. Castrol GTX is good oil, but you might want to consider Mobil 1 in the future if you plan on keeping the car for a long time. It is more expensive but you can get an extra couple of thousand miles out of each oil change because synthetic is better in every way including lasting longer. Also a little longer change interval saves you some work. Like I wrote in the other post, if you travel hwy 17 often, get a good radar detector. Have fun with the Max...

 

Why would you put only 3 quarts then rev it up to 6500 RPM's...thats a Quart and 1/4 to little...should put in all of the oil so your not doing any unlawfull damage to your engine

-matt

 

I have to agree with Matt on this one... revving the engine just to listen to it right after an oil change with atleast one quart low seems... almost... sacreligous. In the future if you insist on only putting 3 quarts in at first you can turn the car on but get nowhere near 6500 rpms. Good write up and working on cars is fun, except when the test and sometimes beat your patience.

Btw: The Purolator you took off is a fine brand of oil filter, no worries there.

Adam

 

I just did all the same stuff today. Used GTX, no other dino oil is touching my car, and a WIX filter, really happy with them so far. Only difference between me and you is that I did it on my bare back(no not naked), on the concrete floor of my garage and in 10 degree weather, fun times. Took maybe 20 minutes, most of it was waiting for the oil to drain. The lights were changed while the oil was draining, also put my DCs back on. Oh, next time you might want to put a little oil inside the filter and around the rubber ring/seal of the filter before you put it on, just a precaution thing.

You did 2 VERY STUPID THINGS,
1. Running the engine with only 3 quarts, did you not have the patience to take the 5 extra seconds and pour in the rest, MORON.
2. Driving the car without changing the oil for 10k miles. I know that depending on driving habbits that may be ok but after reading your post it makes me think you're just a kid who drives hard all the time, I mean come on you reved the engine to 6500rpm before all the oil was even in the damn car. Again, MORON.
Hopefully you learned something. I know you're trying to help newbies but by posting how things SHOULDN'T be done may cause problems for others too. Please don't make a thread with 10 pictures when you decide to change your air filter. Hope I wasn't too harsh.

 

Let's see now... I should clarify. I tried to earlier, after Matty's post, but the server was busy, so I went to play some computer games instead.

I didn't rev it to 6500 with 3 quarts in, I did that after all the oil was in the car. I was just on the topic of revving, so the beauty of that sound occurred to me, and I wrote it down. :P My mistake in not being clear. After 3 quarts, I revved the engine a bit, to 3kish or so, to get the oil running through the engine, as the motorvate.ca how-to suggested, and then shut the engine off. I didn't put in the 4th quart because the low oil pressure light didn't go on... forgetting in my (yes) stupidity that I was supposed to put in the last quart even if it didn't. Also, the dipstick read as being completely smothered with oil all the way up and down, so neither I nor Ryan (who knows what he's doing with a dipstick, at least, even if I don't) could figure out what it was trying to tell us.

I know (now) driving the car for that long on the same oil is stupid. Everyone makes mistakes when they don't know what they're doing; I knew nothing about oil whatsoever until about a month ago, and I already know I'm never going to do that stupid thing again.

I oiled the rubber gasket on the filter and the copper gasket and threads on the drain plug before putting them on.

You were too harsh, Big D, in my opinion. :P A newbie's called a newbie for a reason, because (s)he doesn't have adequate knowledge on the subject, and maybe doesn't know things that seem obvious to experienced people, and I am a professed newbie... no need to call someone a moron for lack of experience. But everyone's got their own MO, doesn't bother me too much if you want to be insulting. Thanks for the opinion.

 

yeesh, lighten up.

Welcome to the ORG!

 

Good lord, is this going to become a nitpicking session? I said in my reply that I wrote it wrong. Get over it.

 

jeebus man, you did a splendid job. thank you and welcome

 

I just wanted you to know you did something wrong with your car. Don't want you or anyone else to mess anything up.

 

Thanks for the concern, I'd appreciate any and all advice. For instance, maybe you could tell me what those corner lights are actually called, and what size bulbs go in them? I'd like to change them to match the other lights... although, my friend did notice that a lot of the light setup pics I got in response to the other thread I posted about light bulbs had distinctly yellow lights there... what actually is the function of those lights? Are they supposed to be one color or the other, or does it not matter? More newbie information for me, please... :P

And is there a tongue smiley on the board? Heh.

 

http://www.sylvania.com/bin/carApp/c...xima&x=26&y=16

here's a link to the light #'s on the car

 

Oooh... that's awesome, thanks! I probably should have tried to find that myself...

 

They are called corner lights. On 95 and 96 model maximas they get brighter while the turn signal is on to light up the turn. They use 1157 bulbs.