A friend with a '93 EV wants to start doing his own
maintenance, but has been stopped by the oil filter. He got
the drain plug out and drained the sump, but couldn't get
the oil filter off using his normal filter wrench. He's going
to borrow my ramps and try again, but in his own words:

"Give me a day or so to think about the stands and ramps.  The last
attempt kicked my butt and I may just pay to have it done.  I don't know 
if you've dealt with this before but I'll try you. The van oil filter has 
a big nut-like thing on the bottom.  It just screams to have a big 23mm 
or so socket attached to get the filter off.  Am I dreaming or will it work?  
Or will I rip the bottom off of the filter and make quite the mess? "

	So should my friend try a socket on that filter bottom or
pay someone to work whatever magic it takes to remove the filter. I'd
take the presence of the nut-like-item as proof that the factory 
decided the filters needed help coming off (NOT going on, Correct?? Ric?
Anyone? Hand tighten, yes?)

	Let me know, and thanks all!

	Bill

	ps- the list/newsgroup question seems to have arisen again- 
I'd read it if anyone who wants to start a moderated news group
for this subject. Volunteers should figure out how to do this and 
let us know. LOTS of work. Gerry does a fabulous job with this list-server 
and I'm fine thank you, today, in fact very grateful for his contribution 
to my quality-of-life.  And I did notice the beer-of-the-month-club thing- 
seems oddly appropriate :) Too bad no firework of the month club :)#)

	For those who want to organize the daily traffic into one
easily identified object, let me suggest Digest mode, where you get
50-60 messages or a day's worth, which ever comes first, as one email.

To turn digest mode on, send E-Mail to listserv@lenti.med.umn.edu with no
subject and one line saying
SET VANAGON MAIL DIGEST

To turn digest mode back off send E-Mail to listserv@lenti.med.umn.edu with
no subject and one line saying
SET VANAGON MAIL ACK