Underground Lair of the Squankum

NightSky · Mar 22, 2026

gooned said:
I’d say that is a specific tool, not that I own one…I also noted he neither pre-filled the new filter not put a dab of oil on the dry seal…both of which I do on anything I care about.

Don't know what he did as far as prefilling or coating the seal, however, there is a drip of (what looks like) oil running down the side of the filter just before he spins it on:

I see that the cutter is fairly common tool for those wanting to inspect the filter for debris as a check on engine wear.

Squankum · Mar 23, 2026

NightSky said:
Interesting device that he used to cut open the used filter cannister. Did he steal that from the kitchen or is that made for opening filters (& why, if so)? I haven't seen anything like that before.

You never pored over race car parts & supplies catalogs as a middle-aged yute?

And maybe I never showed off mine here when I cut open filters to ogle the metal particles grabed by the FilterMag oil filter magnets I use? Here's mine:

Pretty high price for a hobby of being a worried nerd, I must confess. I bet there are cheaper out there, but Longacre's one of those brands where most everything they make is good stuff.

gooned said:
I’d say that is a specific tool, not that I own one…I also noted he neither pre-filled the new filter not put a dab of oil on the dry seal…both of which I do on anything I care about.

Since it's an upside down filter, prefilling is not an option. As for lubing the seal on the new filter:
a) we're running into the issue of seeing so much done on camera on YouTube that we forget that not all that gets done gets filmed. I think the guy did lube it with oil, and kinda sloppily! See Night Sky's catch on the oil trickle at 2:06.

2) The oil filters you buy at the Subaru dealer come with a plastic wrap cover to keep debris out of the open end of the filter (why don't more companies do this with their oil filter? I mean, besides the clueless people who install the filter without removing that plastic.) But wait, there's more! This filter from Subaru comes with a pre-lubed seal. Seems like a thin grease, similar to dielectric grease. A nice touch, since they were putting the plastic wrap cover on anyway.

iii) He held the cutter and turned the filter. I find it easier to hold the filter and rotate the cutter! Handle needs half a turn per revolution anyway, might as well have your fingers on the knurled handle.

P.S. Hmm, if I had seen options like this when I bought mine, I think I might have gone cheap. They all look very similar.

Squankum · Mar 24, 2026

Building heat sinks!

Squankum · Mar 24, 2026

19th century coal mining... today! I'm not sure where. Probably Pakistan again.

"Black diamond" is a term used for coal.

Squankum · Mar 28, 2026

Just a silly moment when running around town doing errands the other day. Used America's finest locking pliers to remove the bottlecap from a Mexican-made Fanta.

(Knipex Cobras would have been better but my HF Bauer tool bags are just big pits of clutter, and it was the Malcos I found first.)

Squankum · Apr 4, 2026

Oil change on the new Subaru. 5,721 since the first oil change I did when it was 1,032 miles old..

Can't even say the oil was dirty. Oil sample taken for lab analysis just for yuks/early warnings of problems.

This newfangled OW-20 oil sure is watery and hit the "bottom" of the drain pan side of this container and splashed out. That's two different modern Subarus lately that have surprised me with with a watery sploosh -- and this time, I was opening a Fumoto valve. Normally they're known for a predictable arc of oil coming out. I'm pondering better methods for next time.

This pic, I've slid the pan towards the camera after the fact, you can see where all of the splashing happened around it.

Oil filter mount showing how not-dirty the oil is. It starts off with a faint brownish tint when new.

I forget if I've bragged about my new Assenmacher funnel for Subaru. Cheaper than the last Assenmacher funnel I bought, and no precise metal parts. Surprisingly, I wasn't finding it on Amazon. It screws in, allowing a secure funnel to stick an oil bottle into and walk away for 15 minutes.

Just for yuks, I removed the radiator cap, just to see how easy that was to do. Gosh, is it tiny! But big enough to let steam out and pour coolant through the hole, so it's a perfectly fine size.

Squankum · Apr 4, 2026

And now, for Science, let's look at the old oil filter:

One of my old $3 drain pans, with some oil in it from some other dumb projects. Dome of the oil filter is a little collapsed from me tapping a hole into it the night of the LHO (long/hot/overnight) oil drain. My previous Subaru oil changes have been tidy affairs, even with the oil filter pointing down, but I thought I'd try giving air a chance to get in this way. Conclusion: no real difference.

On the right, my overpriced Longacre oil filter cutter.

It's one cutting wheel and two roller bearings. Except I can't get the cutting wheel to touch the canister! Hey, this filter is small!

Went and got some tools and moved the roller bearings to the closer holes, which I had never noticed before this day. Now they will live in the closer holes until the day I have to open a very large filter.

A couple of go-rounds with a half turn tightening of the threaded rod/cutting wheel with each revolution, and it's off!

Silicon anti-drainback valve, bypass spring (I think) filter, can.

Here are the lines showing ferrous metals that the FilterMag that I put on the outside of the oil filter trapped.

Now I'll smear it with a finger to make it clear what's going on there.

Of course, most particles are big enough to be trapped by the filter media. Some say that the microscopic particles that can sneak through the filter media are so small the magnet doesn't catch them. (I have no idea what that theory is based on.) Some harp on the fact that the particles you see would have been trapped by the filter, and therefore, this magnet device is a waste of time. Because the particles that are too small to see won't be trapped by it. (Uh, again, they lose me there.)

Some also say that particles small enough to make it through the filter media can't cause any wear because the crankshaft and connecting rod journals are riding on a hydrodynamic wedge of oil. Yes. They sure do that. But that's not the only kind of relative motion between metal parts in an engine, and that kind of oil wedge isn't always present, silly. Pistons at the top and bottom of their strokes are not always riding the film like you'd think, either.

Also, FilterMag claims that they have industrial customers who have put their magnets on the oil filter for their machinery and gotten much longer lifespans out of such engines/machines since moving to the magnets. If FilterMag isn't making that up out of whole cloth, then I'm going to pay attention to that. Their counter-theory to the above, that, when it comes to wear, fewer suspended metal particles are better than more suspended metal particles, sounds credible to me!

On the other hand, it's not like my oil analyses come back with 0 ppm for wear metals! (shrug)

Home | FilterMag Industrial Products Division

www.filtermagindustrial.com

FilterMag Consumer Products | Engine Protection Since 1999

www.shopfiltermag.com

Oil sample is in the mail to the lab.

NightSky · Apr 4, 2026

Squankum said:
I forget if I've bragged about my new Assenmacher funnel for Subaru. Cheaper than the last Assenmacher funnel I bought, and no precise metal parts. Surprisingly, I wasn't finding it on Amazon. It screws in, allowing a secure funnel to stick an oil bottle into and walk away for 15 minutes.

I bought one of these for my 98 Corolla based on your recommendation. Mine came from JBTools. I didn't mind not finding it on Amazon. It's not the cheapest funnel out there but it sure makes the weekly (

) oil top off easier.

Squankum · Apr 5, 2026

NightSky said:
I bought one of these for my 98 Corolla based on your recommendation. Mine came from JBTools. I didn't mind not finding it on Amazon. It's not the cheapest funnel out there but it sure makes the weekly ( ) oil top off easier.

I think I got this yellow one from JBTools, too! Via ebay. I don't need it to come from Amazon, just want to make sure I'm shopping hard, and was surprised that several Assenmacher fancy funnels were on Amazon, just not this one. And there are plenty of hot-roddy Subaru (WRX) owners! (And non-WRX DIYers.)

Squankum · Apr 12, 2026

How the splines get made!

How the welds get made!

(Each type of welding is described in the fine print, bottom right corner.)

Squankum · Apr 14, 2026

News to me, but not hot-off-the-presses news: many major auto parts brands circling the drain or lights-out because one guy snuck $700M out the back door. Fram, Raybestos, Centric, Trico, and more:

Three Major Brands You’ve Probably Bought Brakes From Are Shutting Down - The Autopian

Three major car part brands that you bought from are disappearing. Due to the First Brands bankruptcy Raybestos, Centric, and StopTech closed.

www.theautopian.com

Prestone was a First Brands company for a long time but got sold off in 2023. (Probably to generate big cash for all of the other ambitious shenanigans of conquest, growth, and dreams of richer-than-rich lifestyle.)

zanyad · Apr 14, 2026

******* VC vultures

Squankum · Apr 14, 2026

The ancient art of rodding out a radiator!

scooterbum46 · Apr 14, 2026

Squankum said:
How the splines get made!

How the welds get made!

(Each type of welding is described in the fine print, bottom right corner.)

Great photography ... I should try putting a camera behind one of my Miller hoods sometime.
The TIG sequence shows the arc wandering, I usually resharpen the tungsten at that point.
The laser cutting of steel appears to leave a nasty edge with lots of dross, like a dirty plasma cut.
The MIG sequence, looks too cold at the beginning and then ?

Thanks, as usual you've dragged me off into the weeds. :beer:

Squankum · Apr 21, 2026

Old postal technology: a barrel on a post.

This Is the World’s Most Unusual Post Office

On a remote island in the Galápagos, tourists become mail carriers.

www.nationalgeographic.com

Floreana Island in the Galapagos. 19th century whalers would always stop by for this post office, and to pick up live tortoises for a long-term meet supply. (That was done until extinction.) Anyway, coming or going, they would stop by and pick up or drop off any letters, and get them to where they were going. It beat the other communication option of zilch.

People still use it, no postage required.

Good news! The species tortoises have been discovered elsewhere and have been reintroduced, after 180 years:

A Homecoming for Floreana | Galápagos Conservancy

Giant tortoises return to Floreana after 180 years, restoring lost ecological functions through science-led conservation partnerships.

www.galapagos.org

Squankum · Apr 26, 2026

Area trucker gets 10.4 mpg.

Squankum · Apr 26, 2026

Better know a battleship turret's armor:

kyrbz · Apr 26, 2026

Squankum said:
Japanese craftsman is building a drum, right? Using the most traditional methods and tools until he doesn't. Wait, it's a banjo!

"That's the worst banjo player I've ever heard."
- Alvin the Chipmunk

That instrument is called a “Shamisen”. Traditionally they used cat skins for the head but now they use various alternatives. There‘s a good special on NHK World about a traditional craftsman in Kyoto who makes and repairs them. He’s comes from a family of Shamisen makers and has a stash of cat skins that he uses on restorations for purist. He’s in very high demand by top Shamisen musicians for his skill and use of traditional materials. I think the video you posted is the same guy in the NHK special.

Squankum · Apr 26, 2026

kyrbz said:
That instrument is called a “Shamisen”. Traditionally they used cat skins for the head but now they use various alternatives. There‘s a good special on NHK World about a traditional craftsman in Kyoto who makes and repairs them. He’s comes from a family of Shamisen makers and has a stash of cat skins that he uses on restorations for purist. He’s in very high demand by top Shamisen musicians for his skill and use of traditional materials. I think the video you posted is the same guy in the NHK special.

Probably importing cat skins from China, where they're still part of the food trade.

Squankum · Apr 26, 2026

Old news! I failed to show my work here. It has come up in my other internet travels in the past month or two, other people with turn-of-the-century Dodge products still having problems with a dumb plastic part.

V-8 Durangos, Dakotas, and I'm guessing Ram pickups from the era, too, Dodge put a plastic junction in the middle of the upper radiator hose for the filler/pressure cap. The plastic dies. It died on this Durango a long, long time ago, before it even reached 100,000 miles, if I recall correctly, and lead to an overnight wait on an out-of-town trip and a high-price dealer replacement hose. I've avoided that problem with my regime of "change all hoses every 100,000 miles" on certain vehicles in our fleet. And a newer plastic-junctioned upper hose that I had installed failed around the 110K mark when I was driving it! Luckily just two blocks from the Underground Lair. Yes, I was late on my 100K mile preventive maintenance.

I am not too proud of the hot roddy solution I now use. I didn't think of it. I was looking under the hood of a Durango at the junkyard when I saw this, and I removed it and took it home and cleaned it, and next time I was doing cooling system work on the Durango, I installed a truly reliably upper radiator hose:

The factory plastic junction had a ridged barb on the bottom to plug into the square hole on the bracket. I just pull the hose and radiator cap away from the hood soundproofing mat using a metal band strap.

There are cheaper metal junctions like this to be found, the Morosos cost more than $32 lately. (They used to cost about $32 when I did this job.) But this is very nice cast aluminum.

What they look like new:

Squankum · Apr 30, 2026

A detailed and thorough overview of the world of fuel filters for small engines:

Squankum · Apr 30, 2026

Successful and slightly interesting oil report for the new Subaru. I'm having a problem taking oil samples lately -- I start the draining process and it's gotten to the very end before I remember I want to take an oil sample. Then I wind up laying there with my arm out, little plastic vial in the thin stream of used motor oil, waiting for it... waiting for it... to fill the vial. (And it takes a long time to go from tiny, thin oil stream to the drip-drip-drip phase with 0W-20 oil.)

So far, the lab has been able to give me a good report without a full plastic vial. This time, there was one metric they couldn't test for me.

Context of the test: we did an oil change at 1,000 miles for a brand new engine/car, and now, another oil change 5,700 mile later is still showing a little bit of break-in going on inside the engine. IIRC, similar with what the Motor Oil Geek showed with his engine break-in oil change lab reports on one of his cars.

Squankum · May 4, 2026

PICAYUNE PROJECT!

I haven't shown it off yet, but I assembled an "on the road" tool bag for when I travel. I got a mill file from Harry J. Epstein's last summer, and a handle. (File made in India.) Can't have this thing bouncing around next to some shiny MALCO Eagle Grip pliers!

Cardboard, duct tape. First design (just one bend, a U-shape) was a failed idea. Needed two bends in the cardboard, then duct tape.

More interesting projects are coming!

Squankum · May 5, 2026

New technology! Fighting fire with... sound? Low frequency sound.

Infrasound waves stop kitchen fires, but can they replace sprinklers?

Acoustic fire suppression goes commercial.

arstechnica.com

Squankum · May 5, 2026

How some motorcycle sprockets get made:

Squankum · May 5, 2026

Benz work is brewing, but first, a special tool!

This is my CTA diesel injector tool, 22mm, #5069. There are many like it but this one is mine.

Did I do this job last time without a special tool? That's not the point! It will go better with one, mm'kay? And now I get to put a torque wrench on it, which gives me a warm fuzzy.

The vintage Benzes have a very simple gas tank setup. The bottom of the tank has a screw-in screen where the fuel goes through before heading to the pump. Easily removed (if you have a skinny arm or lift), 32? 36mm? socket or just pliers. Makes it easy to see if there is krunk and gradoo mucking up the works. (Where it's not simple is that in the bottom of the tank, inside, is a cast aluminum swirl pot so there is a constant supply of fuel as the level gets low.)

The gold nut below the big silvery nut is what my tool is for. And while there are many "diesel injector" crow's foot tools out there, 22mm is where things get harder to find.

The CTA 22mm tool is nice but too thick to fit between the crimp in the hose and the thin nut I'm going after. Time for the flapper wheel! My outside workshop for sparks and grit:

(Alas, I didn't think of a water tank to drop it in until it was a little late.)

Someday I'm going to bolt this old vise to something but for little projects it keeps working out fine.

Ooh, that's a little wobbly, but once I got it to fit, I started to lose interest in chasing perfection. Several attempts were made. I'm no lathe.

Had to clearance the top of it, too, too much gusset on each side adding strength I don't need and causing clearance issues, too.

Access is a little frustrating -- driveshaft in the way, and this will all be 16" above my face while I'm on my back. I went through the fuel system and its old rubber hoses already a few years back, you might remember that. Well, the O-ring on the fuel strainer didn't seat right or get crushed hard enough, not sure, I think it had a tiny drip and who wants any seepage from a gasoline system? Then a rodent of some kind gnawed on the hose connected to this hose, so I'm taking it apart anyway, it's a two-fer.

Squankum · May 7, 2026

Some internet humor a friend passed along to me:

You buy a German anvil. It contains 83 moving parts and requires winding twice a day. It's forged from excellent steel, holds tolerances across all three striking faces to within three microns, includes a beautifully indexed horn-adjustment mechanism nobody asked for, and requires a proprietary 11-point spanner should you need to replace the rebound calibration bushing. It runs flawlessly for years, but one day it starts up in limp mode because the onboard anvil-management system detects that it's overdue for its 50,000-strike inspection.

You search AliExpress for a Chinese anvil, and are presented with a multitude of offerings from such household-name brands as DUKXJYIBF, HDBTGMXI, AND UEJQIP. They're all priced to within a few pennies of each other, appear completely identical except for the nameplate, and obviously all came out of the same factory. You text your blacksmith friend to ask if they're legit. He tells you he got one like that from KIXJBU a few years ago, and that it's been great and a terrific deal. You thank him, but KIXJBU seems to have folded so you buy the one from UEJQIP. When it arrives, it feels suspiciously light. You scratch it and realize it's iron-plated aluminum.

You buy an American anvil. It's five times the price of the competition, but it comes from a brand that your great-grandfather used to love. It comes boxed with a warranty registration postcard, twenty pages of safety instructions, assay certificate, and a regulatory slip which lists its FCC certification and ITAR registration. It looks just like your friend's KIXJBU. There's a "Made In China" sticker on the bottom.

You buy a Russian anvil. It arrives coated in cosmoline, wrapped in newspaper from 1974, and weighing 40% more than advertised. The finish looks like it was machined with a shovel. The face is not flat, but somehow this does not matter. You drop it off a truck, accidentally leave it outside for six winters, and use it to straighten a bulldozer blade. It's fine.

You buy a Swedish anvil. It comes flat-packed in a long cardboard box with cheerful Neo-Grotesk lettering and a line drawing of a smiling man assembling it with an Allen key. The instructions contain no words, only pictograms showing the anvil face, horn, waist, feet, and 112 identical-looking fasteners. Halfway through assembly, you discover that the pritchel hole was installed upside down, but only because you used peg B17 where you should have used peg B71. Once assembled, it is clean, stable, and works better than it has any right to. You immediately wonder whether you should have bought two.

You buy a Japanese anvil. It arrives wrapped in rice paper inside a paulownia box, accompanied by a certificate bearing three generations of signatures and a photograph of the first production example being presented to the Emperor. The face has been hand-polished by a seventy-eight-year-old master whose family has made striking surfaces since the Muromachi period. You are given detailed instructions for oiling it with a cloth folded in a specific way. It is the most beautiful object you own. You never quite work up the nerve to strike it.

Squankum · May 10, 2026

Eighty-eight year old man is still driving his 1968 Porsche 911:

Squankum · May 10, 2026

Area man drives Corvette 280 mph in the standing mile:

Squankum · May 10, 2026

This is almost like a living history exhibit. Parts store man knows how to look up a bearing in the paper book.

gooned · May 10, 2026

Squankum said:
This is almost like a living history exhibit. Parts store man knows how to look up a bearing in the paper book.

And had it in stock

Feels like nobody stocks anything anymore

Squankum · May 10, 2026

gooned said:
And had it in stock

Feels like nobody stocks anything anymore

On second view, I realize he's at a bearing store.

Squankum · May 11, 2026

Skateboarding the Susten Pass in Switzerland:

Squankum · May 12, 2026

Commerical-grade battery powered Honda electric mower. You can mow a property with it, and it will be able to do it for you after that.

Squankum · May 13, 2026

Skateboarding the Austrian Alps -- here the shadows make it clear that the chase camera is not a GoPro on another skateboarder, but a camera rig on the nose of a tailgating car!

Skateboarding a mountain road in Colombia? Much more dangerous!

Squankum · May 13, 2026

Austrian mountain gravity karts:

Etchase · May 14, 2026

From my island.

Lots of high school kids filmed themselves with a selfie stick. Lead to some crashes

Squankum · May 14, 2026

Etchase said:
From my island.

Lots of high school kids filmed themselves with a selfie stick. Lead to some crashes

Thankfully, there are now dones that can follow you around. Or maybe large Honda lawnmowers.

Etchase · May 14, 2026

The selfie stick put the camera right at axle level. Mad it look like everyone was going 100. Those Honda’s are very cool!

Squankum · May 14, 2026

Etchase said:
The selfie stick put the camera right at axle level. Mad it look like everyone was going 100. Those Honda’s are very cool!

Unmanned Onewheel camera chase vehicles!

Or maybe just a Chinese robot running behind you holding a camera on a stick.

A humanoid robot sprints past the human half-marathon world record in Beijing race

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/20/g-s1-118086/humanoid-robot-half-marathon

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A humanoid robot sprints past the human half-marathon world record in Beijing race​

A humanoid robot sprints past the human half-marathon world record in Beijing race