Coolant, Air filter, Spark plugs, Transmission fluid, Brake fluid

Replacing fluid would be rather straightforward but how can I change spark plugs? According to the reliable service manual (of course, internet…), it is pretty simple if I have proper tools. Well, I bought tools and tried to do it finally, but I realized it is NOT that simple!! Why? Subaru has a unique engine design, so-called boxer engine. The cylinders are horizontally located two on the left and the other two on the right. This makes the access to the spark plugs quite difficult. Let me go through this step-by-step.

The tools needed: torque wrench (21 N-m/15.5 ft-lb), 3/8″ spark plug socket, 3/8″ socket extension, 3/8″ socket adapter, 3/8″ ratchet, and screw driver.

The parts needed: spark plugs (NGK FR5AP-11).

Disconnect the ground cable from the battery for safety. You need to remove the air filter case and the connecting tube to access the right side (of the car) spark plugs.

The air filter is located right behind the right headlight – the black box with two finger clamps, which is connected to the engine via a semi-flexible tube. Release two finger clamps (by hand) and a ring clamp (using screwdriver) of the air filter case, and remove the case and the filter. The image below shows when it is removed.

Then, remove the flex plastic tube connection in the same way. The image below shows when both parts are removed.  Now you can access the right side socket plugs. There is nothing to remove on the left side (of the car) to access spark plugs.

Next, find the socket plug cord and boot (see the black rubber sticking out of engine block?) and remove them. The boot is designed to help removing it by hand, but you will need a lot of force. You should not pull the cord itself.

The image below shows the cords and the boots on the left side of the car. See how easy they can be reached?

Once you remove the boot with the cord, grab spark plug socket, connect socket extensions, and insert it to the bore. See the image below.

I use the below combination to remove the spark plug.

See the difference. New vs. old.

After switching the plugs with new one, carefully insert through the bore and hand tighten it first. Then set the torque wrench to the specified torque and tighten it.

The left side is a little more difficult just because of the tighter space.

I had to use slightly different combination for the same reason. I just switched two adapters and it worked.

See how the long torque wrench is connected to the socket adapter.

Once you replace all four plugs, plug in the cord boots, connect the tube and the air filter case, and finally connect the cable on the battery. I was a little bit nervous before I started the engine, but it worked very nice. Carefully hear the engine sound and test drive.

나단이는 요즈음 나에게 찬송의 의미를 가르쳐 주고 있다.
단이에게 들려주기 위해서 매일 찬송을 하나씩 외우려 한다.
먼저 살아간 믿음의 선배들의 고백들을 단이 덕분에 조금 더 느끼게 된다.
그 찬송이 나의 찬송이 되고 나의 기도가 되고 있다.
주님이 나에게 주시는 항상 좋은 것은 기쁨과 평화와 안식뿐 아니라 아픔과 수고도 있다는 고백.
아직 죄가 뭔지도 모르는 나단이가 겪고 있는 아픔들과, 그것을 지켜보면서도 잘 먹고 자고 있는 나 자신을 바라보며 느끼는 죄책감. 내 마음 속에 믿음은 없다. 걱정만 있다.
주님을 위한 아픔과 수고를 겪은 믿음의 선배들이 경험한 그 기쁨, 평화, 안식은 얼마나 컸을까?

날마다 주님 내곁에 계셔 천국생활 하게 하도다.
주님께 온전히 의지할 때 힘주시고 위로하시네.
상한 나를 품에 안으시고 항상 평안함 주시도다.
내가 세상 살아가는 동안 함께한다 약속하셨네.

At 11pm, right after I finished the conversation with family regarding Nathan’s condition, I found I a missed a phone call from NICU. A voicemail was left from the nurse. My heart rate was going up. A nurse practitioner informed me that they found bloody stool at ~10pm meaning Nathan might get an infection. She said Nathan needs blood transfusion, antibiotics, and so on. I didn’t know what was happening, but I know what I really didn’t want was taking place. Again I had no choice but to agree.

*10/20/2010
Today is Nathan’s one month birthday. Nathan looks much better than yesterday according to the nurse. Doctor held indocin after two doses and resumed two more doses after 12 hours. Murmur became less pronounced but is still there. But they found nothing from his stool and blood culture. His platelet count was low. He received platelet transfusion.

*10/24/2010
Hyewon’s voice in 3pm phone call threw my soul to the status where it was when Nathan was about to come out from her womb.”Nathan may need a surgery!” They already gave him anesthetia when we arrived and a sergeon hurried to talk to us. He really needed a surgery, because he showed symptoms of NEC or necrotizing enterocolitis. They found air pocket in his belly from x-ray. The sergery would end up with three different results based on how bad his vowel is affected. Doctor explained only two cases mentioning Nathan’s good vital signs. If only small portion of his vowel got bad, he would cut that part and connect them. If the affected region is wider, doctor would not connect the remaining vowels right away but sew the upper vowel onto his skin, what they call ‘stoma’, leave the vowel down stream inside. I was wondering what if the infection is even more serious, but couldn’t ask since I was afraid of the answer from his mouth. We had no choice but signing the consent form. The operation took only about an hour. While waiting in a room inside NICU, I had to think all the possibilities including the worst scenario. Both Hyewon and I we so nervous when we heard doctor’s voice from the hallway outside the room. I could faintly hear the conversation between him and someone else. “… went well …” A few seconds later, doctor knoked on the door, came in, and told us the sergery was successful. He said it was exactly what he expected. He cut about 10cm of his small intestine and made stoma or more accurately ostomy in this case. I asked the question I couldn’t ask before the operation. “We will have completely different conversation.” I don’t remember what he exactly said, but his face was clearly telling us what the result would be in that case. There will be the second sergery 4-6 weeks later to connect his intestines. I thank God. But not just because he is alive…

9/23/2010 (27 1/7):
*Feeding 2 ml every 2 hrs.
The hospital brought breast pump for her to practice breast feeding. They said breast milk is very important for premature babies. Eight to ten times of pumping are not an easy task especially for a mom who just went through the labor. Meanwhile, Nathan is getting tiny amount of milk that is provided from milk donor bank.

9/24/2010 (27 2/7):
*Feeding 2.5 ml every 2 hrs.

9/25/2010 (27 3/7):
*910g / 3 ml every 2 hrs.
Nathan’s gained some weight. So far he is doing well. Good boy. The last antibiotics was given at 9pm. Hyewon first tried Kangaroo care without CPAP.

9/26/2010 (27 2/7):
*940g / 5 ml every 2 hrs.
CPAP has been removed, meaning Nathan is breeding by himself! Nathan looks much handsome and cute without CPAP, Velcro and shielding tapes. Nathan shows me the most important thing for living – respiration. Both breathing and cellular respiration need to take place in our bodies to maintain life. Oxygen provided by breathing and sugar from food generate energy as well as garbage (CO2). If Nathan breeds well and eats and digests well, then he won’t have much problem.

9/27/2010 (27 3/7):
*995g / 6.5 ml every 2 hrs.
He gained weight again with fairly large amount – 55g. High-flow line has been put on Nathan’s noses at noon, since he spelled twice with CPAP. He digests well without CPAP and pooped twice. I held and felt him for the first time. He is still very small, but looks like my baby.

9/28/2010 (27 4/7):
*980g / 7 ml every 2 hrs.
He lost weight. I wonder where he spent much energy.

9/29/2010 (27 5/7):
*990g / 7.5 ml every 2 hrs.

9/30/2010 (27 6/7):
*1020g / 8 ml every 2 hrs.

10/1/2010 (27 7/7):
*1050g / 10 ml every 2 hrs.
IV line was taken off. Now Nathan gets all the nutrition from Hyewon’s precious milk.

10/2/2010 (28 1/7):
Nathan gets CPAP back according to the morning update phone call. Be strong, Nathan!

10/4/2010 (28 3/7):
*1085g, 11.5 ml
Nathan got head ultrasound.

10/5/2010 (28 4/7):
No concerns were shown from ultrasound.

10/6/2010 (28 5/7):
*1100g, 12ml
Nathan spelled a couple of times while doing kangaroo care. Although they say that is common for babies in this week of age especially right after feeding, we become so nervous everytime the monitor beeps indicating low RR or low SpO2. We might be bothering him by holding him during his meal time.

10/7/2010 (28 6/7):
*1110g, 13ml

10/8/2010 (28 7/7):
*1125g, 13ml

10/9/2010 (29 1/7):
Nathan lost his weight and is getting more oxygen, about 26%. He must be struggling for some reason. Not a good sign, but hope him to get through it with the help of Him.

10/10/2010 (29 2/7):
He becomes stable with a little less oxygen, about 24%.
Life is in his nostrils, given by God. We don’t realize it until we face it by disease or until we breaths our last breath. Nathan makes me to think a lot of things I don’t consider in my daily life. We easily forget how breathing is important for our life. He also teaches me new knowledge, e.g. ductus arteriosus, heart murmur, etc.

10/11/2010 (29 3/7):
*1155g, 13.5ml
Nathan again overcame the difficulty he had, no matter what it was. What a strong boy he is… He is doing so much better than we do, and blows away our worries.

10/12/2010 (29 4/7):
*1145g, 14ml

10/13/2010 (29 5/7):
*1200g, 15ml

10/14/2010 (29 6/7):
*1215g,

10/16/2010 (30 1/7):
*1225g,
Nathan gets his pace again, and doesn’t need extra oxygen right now. All three graphs on the monitor are drawing nice stable wave forms.

10/17/2010 (30 2/7):
*1235g.
I held him skin to skin. This is the second time I did Kangaroo Care. The more I touch him, the more I realize that he is my son. What is the meaning of having a child? I can think of the answer right away, but it is probably the creation of a life. A new life as a result of love.

10/18/2010 (30 3/7):
*1275g, 16ml

10/19/2010 (30 4/7):
*1295g.

I had three options: 1) Buy a new laptop since this is old Pentium-M, which will costs $$$; 2) Buy a replacement fan part from Ebay, which will costs $$; and, finally, 3) Try to fix a fan, which costs nothing, but may cost a big waste of my precious time. Well, I define myself as an engineer, so why not trying to fixing it? The results was very successful. It was much simpler than I thought. Here I show some photos and step-by-step guideline for the guys who may end up with the same three questions I had.

You will need small philips driver set, lubricant (WD-40 works great for me), cleaning alcohol, and CPU thermal compound.

Thinkpad is well designed physiologically, though probably not esthetically, which makes us easy to replace its parts. As usual disassembly begins with removing many screws. Remember there are some hidden screws you need to figure out. Two screws are hidden with rubber caps (see arrow below at bottom). Plug out rubber caps, then you will see screw heads. Secondly, there are two screws with  that are used for external monitor port.

Remove battery and drives, and remove all remaining screws to take out the bottom cover. You may want to draw which one comes from where, since they are many.

The picture below shows the system with bottom cover detached. See the fan enclosed inside the gray cage? We can’t take out that fan from this side.

Flip over the system. You will notice the palm rest is already loose. See the black square thing next to the yellow thing, which is the connection between the system and the trackpad. Pull it upward, it will come out very easily.

The next is the keyboard. Same thing. Keyboard is already loose, so flip over. If you see one connector, disconnect it.

Now it’s time to take out the remaining cover which is blocking the fan. Unscrew the screws holding the black frame to the system, and take the cover off.

Finally, you will see tiny speakers (L & R). These speakers are pretty bad with very low volume, which is one of my complaints with Thinkpad laptops. Now we’re almost there.

Remove two screws which fix the left side speaker assembly. Then remove four screws which fix the heatsink to the motherboard. See two silver rods lying parallel on top of copper heatsink? Two screws are there at the end of each rod. The fan and heatsink comes with one part. Three pictures below show the system and the fan after they are detached.

As soon as you take the heatsink assembly out from the system, you will see the thermal compound spread on the CPU and the heatsink bottom face. I strongly recommend to clean these surfaces and put fresh compound for best heat dissipation. Now, see the very small screws on the fan cover? Remove them and you will see the fan blade under it (See the last picture).

Now detach the plastic fan case (black) by removing screws.

The image below shows the heatsink after removing the fan case, with the exhaust segments zoomed in. Actually, I cleaned with vacuum and brush before removing it. Nevertheless, the heat dissipating segments look still dirty with oily dust. The oily surface and residual dust would attract more dusts and become clogged easily. The easiest way will be submerge the heasink into the soap water, and clean with sonicator. Unfortunately I have no sonicator. Instead I cleaned it with alcohol and brush.

The picture below shows the heatsink after cleaning. Okay, I am satisfied.

Now it’s time to solve the major problem: “fan error”. If you take the blade off from the fan hub (by just pulling out), you will see the motor assembly. The source of the noise should come from the hub and the axis; either by wear or by poor lubrication. For this small part, even if there is wear, it would be small and can be overcome by enough lubricant. So, I applied small amount of WD-40 on its hub, put the blade back, and spin it by hand. Guess what? I felt it became much smoother, and that was it! I half assembled the fan, plugged the power cord, and try to hear the noise but could not. It sounds like when I first bought the laptop.

Re-assembly all parts in reverse order. My laptop is not completely usable without noise, though it cannot compete with Intel’s current Core 2 Duo products.

The entrance of Multnomah Falls.

Yoona finding the best angle for the Falls shot.

~600 ft height.

Lower Falls.

Upper Falls.

1) I bought Limited edition and got leather seats, which minimized smell from the seats.
2) I got all weather rubber floor mats, which is easy to clean, unlike dirty wet carpets.
3) A/C filter. After driving less than year since I bought this brand new Outback, my nose started to feel something is wrong, and realized it is from the air from A/C. Yes, filter!
I am not sure how much you need to pay for this if you stop by Subaru Service, maybe $100? Instead, I decided to replace myself and bought the part from them for ~$27 after coupon.

The problem is I couldn’t find a good instruction from internet, though Joe Spitz put one in his website:  http://www.cars101.com/subaru/airfiltration.html
There is another one here I found useful:  http://www.subaruoutback.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15559&highlight=cabin+air+filter

STEP 1: Open the passenger side door and pry off the right instrument side panel/cover. Wiggle with your hands, and pry off it. (Then it would be like the picture below).

STEP 2: Unhook the string that supports the glove box door, and bend the sides of the glove box to pop it out of their tracks, so you can move the glove box open lower. (See picture above)

STEP 3: Remove the plastic screw shown in the picture above (Don’t apply too much force for this, it’s “plastic”.)

STEP 4: Remove the upper storage bin where your manual is stored (Just pull it. This is easy), and now you can see the filter cover.

STEP 5: Remove 5 plastic screws on the access panel, as shown in the picture above. Then, grab the hole and pop out the panel. (I could reach the clips behind that fix the panel by accessing them through the opening from previous step, and wiggle the panel to pop it out.)

STEP 6: Remove the filter cover (cover and filter as one unit) using levers, and angle it down, and slide it through the bottom opening.

STEP 7: Replace the filter with the new one. (Less than 8000 miles of driving, my A/C filter is already dirty!!! Dealer’s recommendation is at 15K, I would like to replace it every 7K.)

STEP 8: Reverse the orders to put it all back together.

After replacement, the bad odor went away~~ Yeah!
Please comment if there is anything confusing, so I can clear it out. You should be able to replace yours and breath better inside your ride. Don’t pay extra bucks at dealer shop.