Well, to begin this posting, I'd like to thank everyone on this board for the invaluable advice you all have given me. Many of you are seasoned DIYers and would consider a simple oil change or a distro. change to be trivial. I have always wanted to do my own work since getting my 245, however, because my fear of "screwing things up," I've never mustered the confidence to do anything on it despite the fact that I'm quite mechanically inclined. Thus, most work, such as a simple oil change, have been performed by mechanics who could care less about my baby.

After feeling ripped off, unhappy, and dissastisfied with many auto places, some of which specialized in Volvos, I decided to get serious about DIY work because I know I would put more care into it. But perhaps the main thing that made me want to do my own work is saving money. The last two places quoted me $150 (aprox.) and $60 for a cap/rotor/sparks change and an engine flush, respectively. No way was I going to pay that much for some work that I knew deep inside were easy DIY work.

Well, today, I decided to muster all the confidence I needed and set about doing my own oil change and minor tune-up. I had all the parts and was quite excited about doing my own oil change and engine flush. However, excitement soon gave way to frustration, frustration to dispair. I COULD NOT loosen the oil drain plug! I tried and tried! (thanks Don and Mit for responding so quickly!) I'm going to have to either try again or perhaps give up and take it to a place where they could at least loosen the plug for me. But still, I really wanted to do it because I knew I could. All the tools fit and I was ready!

Okay, so, no oil change today. Next project was changing the cap/rotor. It looked fairly easy to do--in fact, it was so easy that I thought I must being doing something wrong! Well, I did do something wrong because the car did not start up smoothly. Initially, I thought I mismatched the wires, but at the same time I thought it couldn't be because I was following the number 1 on the distro cap and plugging the wires accordingly. I double checked to make sure everything was in tightly and tried again: same thing. The car would idle horrendously and die out. Okay, I decided to switch the wires around even though I thought my first installation was correct. I started the car again, and, eeeeeek, it shook violently and putted. After switching the wires a few more times and getting terrible sounds and shakes from the engine, I decided to put back the old cap and leave the new rotor in. Same thing. Then I took out the new rotor and put back the old one--still not starting properly. I tried and tried! It was so frustrating and tiring; I just wanted to cry! The fact that the car shook so violently and putted at times made me think of all the damage I could be doing, and that didn't help me one bit. I wanted to give up, but I couldn't. The car was running nicely before I f#%ked it up, and, damn it, I was going to either make it run like it was before or better.

After deciding it was not the new cap/rotor, which, by the way, were almost identical to the Volvo original parts, I put them back in. And by sheer determination and luck, I looked at the wires and the plastic circular fastener they were attached to, saw that it kind of held the wires in place; I then positioned the wires according to how they "twisted" to the cap (kind of hard to describe). Voila! The car started beautifully!

I know, for many of you, this work may not be anything, but to me it was a huge accomplishment. So cheers to everyone! After all this crap, I feel more intimate with my Volvo. I originally bought it as a beater and didn't really care much for it. I mean I do care, but not deeply--anyway, it's my "do whatever you want to it" kind of car, like eating and parking under trees, you know? Well, being the kind of person I am, I ended up caring too much about this car after driving it. And especially after what happened today, more so! I even got new mats and am careful about eating inside it now! Well, anyhow, enough of me rambling. Here are my concerns:

Did I do any damage to the engine, cat. converter, O2 sensor, or my new cap/rotor when I started the engine with mismatched wires plugged in? I did this numerous times before I finally got the wires matched. The nasty shakes and noises, even smell have made me really concerned about damages that I may have caused. Please let me know. Car runs fine now, but I'm still worried!