A couple of weeks ago my little nice got baptized in Oklahoma City and accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior. Summer and I drove up from Dallas to see the event and while there I had the organization that installed the tires on my Excursion do a little work.

I had the tires rotated and balanced and an alignment on the front end at Hibdon on the Northwest Expressway. It has only been about 6,000 miles since I purchased the tires but they were already starting to show some uneven wear. The alignment was $59 and is good for a year so I plan to take the Excursion back in 11 months or so and have them do another alignment. I could feel the improvement with the handling immediately after hitting the road.

Hibdon wanted $130 before tax to put on new brakes in the rear, which seemed reasonable, but I felt I could save some doe if I did it myself. I also prefer the idea of purchasing brakes that can easily be returned for new ones at O’Rilly’s. High performance, lifetime guaranteed rear brakes cost less than $50 bucks with tax and we had them swapped out in about 30 minutes. Below are the pictures.

I started with using a jack and a jack stand. The jack stand is a must for safety. Never rely on just the jack. Loosen the lug nuts before jacking the wheel off the ground or else the vehicle rocks or the wheel rotates. Also make sure the parking brake is released. Once the wheel is removed there are only two little bolts to remove and then the caliper can be forced off the rotor. I rested the caliper on the jack so it did not hang by the break line. Using a c-clamp and the old brake pad I forced the hydraulic plunger open as wide as it would go. I then replaced the pads, two per rotor, and bolted the caliper back into place. Each wheel took about 15 minutes and we were back on our way to Dallas in no time. Swap out brakes at your own risk and always double check with an expert.

I try to change the oil in my Excursion every 7,500 miles and use Schaeffer’s Synthetic Oil. Schaeffer products work very well. I saw some product tests done in my office at my old company that were very impressive.

In between oil changes I replace the oil filter to keep things nice and clean. So I end up purchasing two filters per oil change. Some people will use their Schaeffer oil much longer between changes and do this by sending in a sample of the oil for analysis. Schaeffer then reports on how the engine is doing based off the metals found in the oil and then lets you know when the oil needs to be changed. I have heard that some people are getting as much as 25,000 miles per oil change!

If I drove for a living then these tests would be very helpful in keeping my oil costs down. A person who drives a truck for a living can rack up 25,000 miles in no time. Since I don’t drive for a living I simply change it out every 7,500 miles, which for me is not all that often.

You will need an oil filter wrench to pull off the filter and a 2 gallon bucket to catch the oil that spills out of the old filter. They make two basic sizes of filter wrenches - one for smaller filters used on cars and one for larger filters used on trucks. Sometimes you can manage loosening them off by hand but you will want to tighten it up with a wrench. The one I purchased was less than $10 from O’Rilly’s.

Once the old filter is off and the new has been installed, you can put the oil back into the engine that overflowed out of the filter. The new filter will catch any debris. I would avoid shaking the oil out of the old filter because you don't want to shake any of the junk back into the bucket.

While I was under the hood with the battery cables off for the glow plug repair, I cleaned up the terminals and did a little preventative work to keep them working properly.

Batteries oftentimes corrode because of electricity passing through dissimilar metals or the acid working its way up to the terminal, the clamp and the copper wire connection.

The best way to prevent this is to loosen the terminal clamp and clean the terminal, the clamp and any exposed copper wire with a metal brush. After tightening the clamp, coat all the exposed metal with silicone or petroleum jelly. Check it every 6 months or so and keep the clamps tight and clean. A loose cable can stop you dead in the road on a nice trip to your favorite vacation spot.