2023 a new year of Spyder maintenance and enjoyment. What are your plans for maintenance this year.

I am also going on year 7 with my Li-ion battery!  The best sealant to put on the drain plug threads is Loctite PST, not one of the thread-lockers.  The PST is actually a threadlocker, but it has higher gap-filling capability and lower locking strength that the regular threadlockers.   Been using it for many years on multiple cars.

Posted by: @dblotii

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I am also going on year 7 with my Li-ion battery!  The best sealant to put on the drain plug threads is Loctite PST, not one of the thread-lockers.  The PST is actually a threadlocker, but it has higher gap-filling capability and lower locking strength that the regular threadlockers.   Been using it for many years on multiple cars.

I am using Loctite PST 592. It seems to be the right product for this application unlike thread lockers. 
I just hope the new crush washer has enough thickness so the bolt doesnt bottom out and strip. 
I should have used a new washer and a torque wrench last time. 

Posted by: @dblotii

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I am also going on year 7 with my Li-ion battery! 

Alright - I am hooked - both of you long term Li-Ion Battery users - details on the battery, please.  I am on year 3 of the jetski battery and will be changing soon. Anything else required for the change? no diode thingi for overcharge protection  - etc?

For "maintenance" yes - oil change  - but I daily and have almost 6k on oil in about 9 months - @Dev if you want to keep your car someplace warm - I can park it out back and help you put more than 2k on it in 3 years? 😎 

The real item for this year is a longer term maintenance... Lower A-arm replacement/bushing upgrade. (Thanks to Gbravi on the other site)..

The original parts (177k @ 20+ years) get ousted.  

slightly used replacement arms 4k or so, ball joints, white line poly bushings and swaybar links hoping for a more stable feeling upfront. But there are other car maintenance items on the list for other cars in the fleet ahead of this car. But the above and A/C fixes are on the list for Spyder in 2023. Wish me luck

I am using a Stinger battery. Details can be found at the other site. At the time I thought it was the best value and now it is more in price. It claims to have highest quality cells. I believe the way you make them last is to keep them on an intelligent lithium charger like the Cteck when not in use. They can get damaged if they are low on charge and your alternator has to feed it high amps repeatedly.  When I did my research it appears that lithium iron batteries will out last lead acid and I was hoping that the technology would get cheaper and newer tech would make them replace lead acid for passenger cars but that has not been the case. 

@rdawg 

 My car likes to be in a garage with a cover over it.  I have noticed that garaged kept cars are much easier to work on and they age substantially less. When my previous Honda was placed outside after living in the garage for 5 years it aged very quickly.  If I did not have a garage I would probably buy the best cover money could buy. 

Now that it runs again, my plans include:

Get it driveable

Drive it.

My Li-ion battery is a Battery Tender.  I am pretty sure my particular one is no longer in production.  I use the Battery Tender charger with the quick connect plug for convenient charging.  In the winter when I store the car, there is really no need to float charge it.  I check it roughly every 4-6 weeks and it hardly loses any charge sitting on the shelf.

With my new setup (battery moved to frunk) during my project, I'm also adding an easy to access battery tender port in the front bumper cover (Or possibly by the tow hook cover).  That way, my car will be ready to drive whenever I want.  Does that make it a plugin hybrid?  hahahaha

I have a Ctek charge port that is made for a dash switch. I removed the coin holder thing on the left side and inserted the Ctek port that looks factory. It also has a blinking status indicator for the battery status. 

It was causing some issues because its connected to puny wiring.  Maybe this is a good time to run a thicker wire run back to the battery so I can  use it again instead of having to pop up the engine lid every time I come back from a drive. 

Yep.  My previous setup involved popping the engine lid everytime I got home and plugging the battery tender into the harness.  Then disconnect was the same type of involvement.  Now (or soon), I'll just have to plug/unplug the cable from the port.

This week I plan to service the car.

 The last time I change the oil which was three years ago and I did a cold drain. I was able to get a lot more oil out that way because it had a lot of time for the oil to collect into the pan. I never understood the rational of the hot drain where supposedly it places deposits in suspension so you get it all out but it collects into the pan anyway from the last time it was shut down. Using synthetic oil there is no sediment at the bottom of the pan so maybe it was a thing in the past with conventional oil and poorer filtration. 

The other rational of the hot drain is the oil will drain faster because it is thiner at temp which I understand but I am in no hurry. In my opinion the cold drain when the engine has been sitting for months is the best because you drain all of the condensation and a larger collection of oil.  The important thing is to fill the oil filter with oil so that its less dry on the first start.

 In the end a hot drain or cold drain probably doesn't matter much as it is the additive replenishment that matters more but the piping hot oil drain is not necessary. 

I've seen a lot of posts/videos lately about people draining oil through the dipstick tube.  They usually pair that with some sort of quasi-scientific reason for why that's the best way to do it and yadda yadda yadda.  But, it makes not sense.  I also generally do cold oil changes (unless I need to drive the car into position first I suppose.  But the oil is certainly not to temp when I do it).  I also try to change oil a little more frequently than required just to be safe despite the small extra cost involved.

Posted by: @lordtakuban

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I've seen a lot of posts/videos lately about people draining oil through the dipstick tube.  They usually pair that with some sort of quasi-scientific reason for why that's the best way to do it and yadda yadda yadda.  But, it makes not sense.  I also generally do cold oil changes (unless I need to drive the car into position first I suppose.  But the oil is certainly not to temp when I do it).  I also try to change oil a little more frequently than required just to be safe despite the small extra cost involved.

I did that last year with a local friend on his car. We had to remove some oil because it was overfilled and what ends up happening is making a bigger mess when the tube slips. 

There are a lot of things that can go wrong with trying to address a non issue. 

 Time for my rant. 

There are two types of mentalities with it come to maintenance and mods that I have seen over the many years of observing other peoples misfortunes.

Either there is a lack of or there are those that read forms and think they need something to address a problem that under normal circumstances shouldn't  occur on the street.  

 The problem with these boy racers is advising things like a larger aluminum sump and other things.  The reason why we had to remove the oil is the sump manufacture specified the amount of oil needed and the owner informed the mechanic to add the listed amount which then leaked out the  rear main seal a week later in a large quantity.  When I looked at it the oil was still over full on the dip stick.

Now we believe the rear main seal is compromised as a result from over pressurization and might need to be replaced. 

I am not saying that people shouldn't mod to correct for a problem but there is so much alarmism for those that ruin their car by not checking their oil level and then they blame it on the sump or in the case of the 2ZZ missing a shift like an FF idiot in a hurry and then blaming the material the oil gears are made of. 

 I had to convince a relatively new owner that I met at our meets that he doesn't need a fully built MWR engine so it is more reliable. Also I believe someone advised him poorly that the OEM flywheel should not be resurfaced and to buy a new one.  Now he is going to economical rout which as a low milage salvaged 2003 plus engine and retaining his flywheel.  

Yeah.  for removing some oil, it's probably easier than removing the drain plug.  But I also use a Fumoto valve which makes that part even easier.  I use Power Enterprise MAG filters which have magnets in them and any metal shavings caught through the system is discarded with the used oil.  So no need for a magnetic drain plug in my case.

But yeah.  You should be checking the oil level as you fill (Or at least half way or more through the filling process).