Clocking In

The odometer on my Pulsar NX has been a lost cause for years. I repaired it back in 2023, sacrificing the sixth digit and resetting it to 100,000, but it eventually quit counting altogether. I've decided I'm done chasing it. Instead of tracking miles I can't measure, I'm going to track engine hours.

The plan was simple: a basic mechanical hour meter that clocks time whenever it sees 12V. No miles, no fuss, just run-time. That's actually a better number for a car like this anyway, since it sits more than it drives and I care more about how long the engine has been running than how far it's gone.

Of course, a meter like this doesn't come with a mounting solution for a 1988 Pulsar, so I fired up the UltiMaker S5 and designed a bracket to hold it. Nothing exotic, just a clean little L-bracket that lets the meter tuck up under the dash near the console where I can still read it.

For power I kept it easy and tapped a spare, open fuse position that's switched on with the ignition. I thought about triggering it off oil pressure or the alternator so it would only count when the engine is actually running, but the truth is the difference is a handful of minutes here and there if the car ever stalls or I sit with the key on. That's an edge case I can live with.

Bracket printed, meter wired, and now sitting at a nice round zero. From here on out, the Pulsar keeps its own time.

Getting Ahead of the Filter

The Cube crossed 164,106 miles and it was time for an oil change.

This is the second fill of Valvoline Restore & Protect Full Synthetic 5W-30 in the Cube - I switched over on the last oil change. From what I've read, this stuff doesn't clean everything up in one shot; it works on piston and ring groove deposits gradually across the first handful of oil changes rather than all at once. Made sense to me once I thought about it - all that gunk it's loosening off the pistons has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is the filter.

So partway through this interval, about 500 miles back, I swapped in a fresh Mobil 1 filter on its own - no oil change, just the filter. Cheap insurance against the filter loading up faster than expected while the new oil does its scrubbing.

By the time I got around to the actual oil change, I'd grabbed a Nissan Genuine filter out of habit before remembering I'd already freshened the one in there. The Mobil 1 was still plenty fresh, so it stayed put and I just handled the oil.

Four quarts of Valvoline 5W-30 later and the Cube's set for another interval, and the Nissan filter goes back on the shelf for next time.