What have you done to your Mazda5 today?

Completed a rather epic oil change today that i started yesterday. The toggle bolt oil drain plug i was
using broke in half leaving the toggle trapped in the pan. Sourced a replacement plug and VERY carefully
installed it. Also put in a new K&N filter, the old one was at 100k and was badly fouled. Gonna need to
figure out a permanent fix for the stripped oil pan, the toggle bolt thing pretty much sucks...
 
torquelover said:
Feel any different?
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I don't drive the car very often but so far no difference that I notice! That works as it was fine before. Interestingly, the parts department at my closest dealer told me that change interval for ATF is 60K miles. Service department at same dealer said it was 30K. (The OM is silent as all A/T owners probably know.)
 
Secondtyme said:
Completed a rather epic oil change today that i started yesterday. The toggle bolt oil drain plug i was
using broke in half leaving the toggle trapped in the pan. Sourced a replacement plug and VERY carefully
installed it. Also put in a new K&N filter, the old one was at 100k and was badly fouled. Gonna need to
figure out a permanent fix for the stripped oil pan, the toggle bolt thing pretty much sucks...
Click to expand...
pics of the carnage or it didn't happen :)
 
Sad to say, it'll have to wait until I change the oil again at 210K. I tossed the remains of the old toggle bolt AND the filthy dirty K&N in the trash that got picked up this AM. I will take some pictures of the threads in the oil pan, because I need some input on just how to proceed. I would like to try to repair the threads with a thread chaser set that I have access to before I dive into r/r of the entire pan. I just don't know if there is enough of the old threads left to even bother with, and I don't want to be leaving little bits of aluminum in the pan to destroy my engine. I like this car and don't want to wreck it trying to fix something that can just as well stay broken LOL
 
Are you planning to run the chase with the pan on? You might get debris inside. If you plan to drop the pan (see Sac’s turbo thread), you can run the chase, bore it out and put in a helicoil, or plug up the old hole and tap/die a new one.

I’m very surprise the quick drain valve failed on you. I’m interested to see/know what happened. It is a simple contraption and solid as heck…
 
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Silentnoise713 said:
I’m very surprise the quick drain valve failed on you. I’m interested to see/know what happened. It is simple contraption and sold as heck…
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Ditto. I've had five of the Fumotos over the years (and friends and family with them) and all of them have been very solid and dependable. So I'm curious and would like to learn how these can break so I know what to keep an eye out for with our existing valves.
 
Cancel the alert! I never got around to installing the Fumoto on my car, this is the OE drain plug that stripped the threads in the oil pan. I removed the OE plug after it began to leak and replaced
it with a Vatozone el cheapo toggle bolt quick fix. It was the quick fix toggle bolt that broke and left some of itself in the oil pan. My plan was to install the Fumoto and use enough Black Loctite or JB Weld to keep that mother in place until Ragnarok! But I waited too long :(
 
crisis averted (2thumbs)

random thought. grab a strong magnet and put it under the pan (if magnet is too strong, use a layer of felt). move it around slowly in hopes of catching whatever metals that may reside inside. It would help to look at pic of the pan to understand crevices and areas to avoid in side. move magnet as close to the drain plug as you can (hope is the debris travel with it). let car/oil warm up (hot oil flows better and less thick -which is why fomoto is fawking awesome), then drain it all. While flowing, pull magnet off in hopes the flow stream catches the debris. you can also aid in the flow by inserting an empty quart bottle into the motor oil ‘fill’ hole and squeeze (fast and hard) the bottle to exert some air/force. The pressure moves the oil out below in hopes of catching the debris -careful b/c oil stream may squirt out a little harder below if you squeeze harder.


EDIT: OR, just leave the magent (need to be strong) on the bottom of the pan to trap/capture the debris and drive on. Old trick on transmssion pans but becareful of crude/rust build up.
 
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I tried to grab it with needle nose pliers, a flexible four prong grabber thingy, my fingers, a telescoping magnetic pick-up, and a pencil with some double face tape on one end, all to no avail! The damned toggle is big enough and the hole in the pan is small enough that it just doesn't wanna come back out. I said every last one of my favorite bad words too :p The only good news is that the oil pump can't possibly pick this thing up, its just too big. I'm just not crazy about it floating around in there is all, I see no good outcome from allowing it to remain for any period of time.
 
tuanies said:
One seat in! Was a big pain in the ass - had to swap the entire upper seat frame/foam and everything from the brown seats, swap the side airbag from the cloth seats into it, swap the seat pan from the cloth seats (brown seat pan had a lot of bad rust). Looks like the lower seat cushions are shorter but they might be better for me since I'm only 5'7". Will tackle the driver's side and rear seats tomorrow.

cuSp7w-FCg0tve7EBe0wGCrPLzck6sBXhKTYI7g0WeI=w543-h965-no
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Sup, Tuan?
that does sound like a pain in the ass. I'm debating if putting a leather interior in mine would increase it's value at all.
 
I doubt you would recoup the cost of the leather seats in resale value on a 5. They aren't exactly in high demand on the used market, sad to say. If, however you dig and think it would be cool, or more comfy, then go for it. But performing any modification looking to increase resale value is a losing proposition at best.
 
I've been driving mine to work this week because my Miata currently doesn't have a top installed (long, angry, story) and it's been raining since Sunday night.

I also bought it a set of MazdaSpeed3 seats over the weekend, and I just might get started on that project tonight. The stock driver's seat kind of makes me hate driving this thing. :-(

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