Got home last night to find that the kind people at EuroCarParts had delivered the brakes for the A-Class and a couple of bits for the ZS. Nothing exciting, just an air filter and pollen filter.
Got the kids in bed and set to work on my car. Took the air filter housing out and gave that a good wash and degreasing as it was caked in crud and old oil. While that was drying I started replacing the pollen filter. What was meant to be a 5 minute job ended up taking ages, mainly due to cleaning all this up:
The pollen filter was a mess:
God only knows how that much crap got in there but, thanks to a handy radiator paint brush, is all gone now. Will have to find out where the air is drawn in from to see if I can stop more rubbish getting in.
Before I re-assembled the air filter housing I gave it a bit of treatment with some black trim wax, which left the box and hose looking much better. Decided to do the plastic cover over the spark plugs as well, came up good as new although the outer screws decided to not go back in (I think the thread that they screw into has disintegrated). Didn't get any photo's as it was too dark but it's looking much better under the hood now.
Last job was to tighten the throttle cable, was impressed at how a 2 minute job can make so much difference. Couple with the new air filter everything is a lot more responsive.
Incidentally, I learnt 2 very important lessons that I thought I'd share:
- Don't get caught using the expensive handheld Dyson to hoover crap out of the engine bay, apparently that's not what it was bought for.
- If you notice that doing the washing up helps remove the ingrained oil from your hands don't proudly announce it, it only leads to an argument and another 30 minutes in front of the washing up bowl!