Over the last few days, I've done a few things to the car...

First off was replacing the awful tires. Two of them were corded horribly:





I replaced them with a brand new set of Kumho Ecstas. They're decent all season tires that ride nicely and weren't too expensive for all four, plus I've got the proper tire sizes now instead of the mismatched mess I had before.



I still don't love the chrome finish style 68's, but at least with fresh tires they're tolerable.



With the tires taken care of, I moved onto my fun box of new parts:



First up was doing an oil change, which was long overdue based on how black and watery the oil was. The o-ring on the filter cap was flattened and rock hard, so who knows when the oil was last changed. Castrol Edge 0W40 was my oil of choice for this round, along with a Mahle filter. I don't have any really specific oil preferences when it comes to M54's, I just know that I like a slightly heavier weight for the summer heat here in Phoenix.

Next up was replacing the awful-looking fluid in the power steering system. It was this weird gray color and didn't look like ATF, so I drained it all from the line at the pump and filled it with fresh synthetic ATF. I'll do a few more flushes in the coming weeks to see if the steering gets better. It feels okay when I'm driving but at low speeds in parking lots it randomly gets kinda heavy. It could very well be a bad pump or bad rack, but we'll see.

Moving along, the worn control arm bushings got replaced with some fresh new Meyle HD bushings. The old ones were pretty mismatched— the passenger side one was original while the driver side one looked newer, along with the driver side control arm. Presumably the car hit something on that side at one point and got those two parts replaced. It's always funny when people only replace suspension components only on one side, that's always a terrible idea unless it's a brand new car with no wear.





The car had a pretty good shake at idle, so I figured doing the motor mounts wouldn't be a bad idea. I'm glad I decided to replace them, the mounts were both original from 2002 and the passenger side mount had completely separated while the driver side mount was collapsed.



You can see how much taller the new engine mount is:



After I did the engine mounts, I replaced the transmission mounts. Somehow these were even worse than the engine mounts— both were from 2002 and were completely separated! If you're keeping count, that means my drivetrain was held in with only one (1) mount, wow. I'm glad I didn't drive the car very hard with the old mounts, I would have definitely torn a radiator hose or sent my clutch fan into the hood.



Before putting everything back together, I figured I'd give the reinforcement plate a bit of a cleaning with the pressure washer. It's amazing how much of a difference a few minutes can make.





I like cleaning things when I work on my cars, it just makes them a little nicer to work on in the future.



With all the actual work done, I moved onto the easy fun stuff, like replacing the engine air filter. I've replaced a lot of these, but this one takes the cake for being one of the nastiest filters I've seen:





The cabin air filter was similarly gross and got replaced with a fancy new Mann filter with activated charcoal. Probably not necessary, but it wasn't super expensive so why not.

Moving inside the car, I installed the factory aux-in kit, routing the plug to the glovebox, mostly out of sheer laziness. The aux-in is somewhat of a temporary setup until I buy a BlueBus kit in a month or two. It's nice to be able to listen to my own music, that truly makes a car feel like my own. Of course the bracket that holds the radio and climate control panel decided to fall apart when I touched it, so I'll have to either buy one new or scour the junkyards for an intact one. It all went back together fine, but it's looser than I'd like it to be. Wood trim needs some new inserts as well, so I'll add that to the list as well.

All that's left from my big box of parts is the passenger side window regulator, which I'll install in the coming days when I've got some free time. The diff mounts also need to be done, but that's a job for another day. With the new engine + trans mounts, new control arms, and new tires, the car feels so much better to drive. It no longer shakes when I'm stopped at a light, and the engine doesn't feel like it's trying to escape the car when I'm driving it hard. There's still some shaking upon braking, so the brakes will likely need to be done in the near future. The car also needs an alignment real bad, so that's probably the next thing I'll get done.