It was time to do a service on the old girl, changing the oil/oil filter and also doing a coolant flush + new thermostat. The reason for this is since I bought the car it's always ran quite cold which I assumed the old thermostat was probably stuck open. So decided to just go ahead with a new OE Honda thermostat.

Upon removing the thermostat + housing it was all very crusty, one could only assume this hasn't been replaced in some time. Gave the housing a clean with some degreaser and scotchbrite to try remove some of the crust.

New OE Honda Thermostat, beautiful. Bled the coolant and everything was micky mouse. Thermostat opened as should and fan kicked on when required. A eBay fan has been wired in with the alloy rad so I was curious to if they had done it correctly and it worked.

Now time for the oil. Upon going under the car (first time investigating) I spotted this large hump around the sump plug which did seem quite suss, however at the time I thought nothing of it. Cracking the bolt I heard a crack and same tightening the bolt but all seemed fine and thought maybe it was just the sump plug washer.. Stay tuned in the next post to see what actually happened, maybe y'all can have a guess..

Cool Greddy sump plug which has a magnet on the inner side, lucky there was no metal stuck on it. Also found a sandwhich plate with sensors and plugs tucked behind the oil filter, so guessing it's had some gauges in the past. I don't plan to run aftermarket gauges so might just sell this at a later date.

The car came with this Buddyclub oil cap, no idea if real or fake however it doesn't matter, I luckily had a spare OE Honda one lying around