Oil filter housing gasket replacement - some questions

[majdomo]

Very good write-up. For someone who has never done an oil change, you seemed to nail this project just fine.

The o-ring that seals the clean oil outlet is notorious for leaking. It is usually due to it becoming old and hard, like yours was.



I can also see your next project...the oil pressure regulator assembly is the old original design. You may have noticed the plunger looking thing in the square holes in the side of the timing case. The original design was metal (which that looks like in the photo), and was later updated to be plastic. Apparently the steel one could gall the aluminum bore and become lodged or something. Swapping that thing is a considerably larger job, though. Also, considering your car is almost 3 decades old, it is probably fine...the design update was in the 90's, so whichever ones were going to fail have likely already done so. Still, if you ever feel the desire to wrench more, that is one item that could use an update. It involves parts 5-8:

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=AF93-USA-10-1990-E30-BMW-318is&diagId=11_0504

It's a pain in the ass all around, mostly due to the upper pan needing removal. For now just drive the car and enjoy it!

Thank you! Have to say that I studied this one for a good 2-3 weeks off and on just to make sure I understood every step and the stuff to buy, including all the questions to the forum and so on. I didn't have anything aside from sockets, so had a fairly long shopping list at first. I also wanted to make sure that I knew the oil change pretty well, which turned out to be a non-issue. I'll probably do my own oil changes from here on out, feel slightly stupid for not doing that sooner.



I did notice that part you pointed out, doing a little research trying to see what to do in case the oil pump fails. It looks like a total pain and will hope for the best for now! I also want to research the timing chain (hard) and replacing the chain tensioner (easy, so I hear). I have no idea when that was done and should just do it just to have it done. On the other hand, I did buy a used impact wrench that just arrived today, and it's just sitting here doing NOTHING, so...



Next project is probably front brakes and maybe the bushings / springs in the gearshift. That's bugged me since I bought the car, it feels all sloppy. Cake walk after this, I'm sure!

[bmwman91]

Very good write-up. For someone who has never done an oil change, you seemed to nail this project just fine.

The o-ring that seals the clean oil outlet is notorious for leaking. It is usually due to it becoming old and hard, like yours was.



I can also see your next project...the oil pressure regulator assembly is the old original design. You may have noticed the plunger looking thing in the square holes in the side of the timing case. The original design was metal (which that looks like in the photo), and was later updated to be plastic. Apparently the steel one could gall the aluminum bore and become lodged or something. Swapping that thing is a considerably larger job, though. Also, considering your car is almost 3 decades old, it is probably fine...the design update was in the 90's, so whichever ones were going to fail have likely already done so. Still, if you ever feel the desire to wrench more, that is one item that could use an update. It involves parts 5-8:

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=AF93-USA-10-1990-E30-BMW-318is&diagId=11_0504

It's a pain in the ass all around, mostly due to the upper pan needing removal. For now just drive the car and enjoy it!

[majdomo]

Oil filter housing gasket replacement - some questions

Alright - repair complete! I did end up doing this in conjunction with an oil change. Have to say this first: I have a mechanical expertise level of about 0 and was almost going to not do it when I couldn’t get the drain plug loose on the oil pan. Up to today, I’d never done an oil change, let alone pull apart minor chunks of the engine. So.

First have to disconnect the negative terminal from the battery. Then you have to get the air box out. Not hard, loosen up the bolts and pull out. Notice that the little snorkel that attaches to the front of the car to the air box is cracked. Priced this thing out and because it’s E30 M42- specific it costs about $65 to replace. Some other time.



Then need to pull the alternator. The alternator turned out to be the most difficult part of the whole thing, as I’ve never done that before and the bolt / nut holding the bottom bracket is tough to get to.

Pull apart the little plastic cover that keeps crap off the contacts and remove the 13mm and 10mm nuts holding them on the alternator. Also remove the little 10mm ground from the back of the alternator, being careful to not lose the bolt.

Loosen up the alternator belt by loosening the securing bolt (firewall side, 13mm I think) and turning the adjuster bolt (19mm, radiator side) to slacken the belt. I made a mark on the adjuster bolt to see if it lined up on reinstall, but I just ended up tightening so that I could only twist the belt 90 degrees more or less. The belt is thin and I really didn’t want to break it.

I pulled out the top securing bolt first, which was a mistake - pull out the bottom one, then the top. The bottom one needs an open wrench on the firewall side to hold the nut in place, while removing the long bolt from the bottom. Once all of them are out, pull out the alternator. May need to give it a good pull to break it free from the carrier bushings.

And now we can pull out the alternator carrier:



You’ll see there are 3 13mm bolts exposed. There are 4 bolts, however - need to remove the upper firewall side bushing to access the 4th bolt on the upper left. If you look carefully you’ll see that the bushings are split in half, just use a standard blade screwdriver to lever the bushing out toward the firewall side. Then pull the carrier.

At this point I used a ton of Gunk degreaser (original, not foaming) to spray the dickens out of the whole area. After that, I used a spray bottle of water to get most of the grease off the housing, bolts, and the whole lower front of the engine which had gotten all greased up from this leak.

After all was somewhat dry, I pulled out the dipstick tube to replace the O-ring. The tube is long and bendy - just pull up and turn counterclockwise as you pull it up to go with the bends in the tube. The tube then gets the degrease treatment:



That little notch sits on top of a rubber O-ring that’s probably still stuck in the car. Just stick your pinky into the hole (heh) and hook it out. You can also use one of those O-ring picks from HF, same same. My O-ring wasn’t in terrible shape but, since I was in there and that whole part of the engine was greased up, I just figured I’d do that too. The new one needs a little fresh oil and slides up from the bottom of the tube.

Next, I pulled out the oil filter housing. With the alternator carrier out you can access the 6 10mm bolts holding it to the block. The top two bolts are longer than the bottom four. Pull the housing straight back. May take a small amount of effort to loosen up the O-ring at the top of the housing interface. Once that’s out, it looks like this:



The paper towel in the top bore is to make sure no crud gets into the engine - this is the clean intake from the filter to the motor. The one at the bottom is covering up the dipstick tube hole.

Fortunately, my entire gasket was stuck to the housing. Unfortunately, it was baked on to the aluminum of the housing and was so old and brittle it came off in little tiny pieces. I took to using the pick to pull off chunks, but eventually resorted to a razor blade and some more degreaser to take it off.:



And here’s what it looked like once I was done and ready to go:



Next was to take off this O-ring at the top of the housing. This one was basically plastic and all hard, and I believe was the source of my leak tbh:



Use the HF pick to pull the bastard off and:


Injury time!! Poked myself right through the glove. Damn things are sharp! Only casualty of the day, though.

Get some degreaser on a paper towel and clean up the block interface for the housing, as well as the accumulated crud near the upper bore. Don’t let stuff fall in the bore!

Oh, I also replaced the oil pressure sending unit, because it was there. The old one seemed ok, but I went ahead and did it anyway. This doesn’t have an O-ring, just a little washer and used a spanner to take the old one off and put the new one on with some muscle:



A little fresh oil on the new O-ring, and a very thin layer of this stuff on both sides of the new gasket:



Here’s the gasket pre-spray. Writing side goes on the housing, plain side goes on the block:



Wait a few minutes for the sealant to get tacky, line it up on the housing side and then apply. Then, go ahead and stick it back in the car after putting a little more fresh oil in the upper bore to let the new O-ring slide in nicely.

As they say, installation is the reverse of removal. I did put the housing bolts on finger tight and waited about 15 minutes for the sealant to set up, then torqued the bolts more fully to the block. I did them “snug, plus a quarter turn” as we couldn’t find the torque settings and this was about how difficult they came off. Same with the alternator carrier bolts.

For me, the rest was pretty straightforward. After everything was back in, I ran a little bit of fresh oil through the engine without the drain plug in, to flush out the rest of the old oil. Then, we buttoned her up and finished out the oil change. Fired right up and purred super smooth. Ran the old oil down to recycle and looks great.

Some tips:
- needed a sh*t ton of paper towels and gloves. Have plenty of both before you start.
- I’ll use a Mahle oil filter next time. The Mann one I got doesn’t seem to sit quite as low in the housing. In fact I’ll probably order one just to have in case the Mann one starts leaking out the top of the filter housing. Seems ok for now though.

Parts list, all from FCP Euro:

11421709800 - Genuine BMW oil filter housing gasket

12618611273 - Rein OEM oil pressure switch

11421709513 - Reinz OEM engine oil filter O-ring

11431287541 - Genuine BMW oil dipstick tube seal

Permatex High Tack Spray-A-Gasket Sealant

Gunk Degreaser Classic

I also used some LA’s Totally Awesome to give it a shot, did work just as well as the commercial degreaser but I didn’t have a spray bottle that made a nice stream like the Gunk.

FIN.



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[jaredmac11]

You really shouldnt have a problem with Reinz. I used them for most of my gaskets/many gaskets and havent had an issue.

[majdomo]

Use the OEM O-ring. I tried off-the-shelf O-rings and they didn't quite fit right. Always fun to turn the engine on and have it spraying oil all over. The OEM one is a couple bucks and there were a ton available at the local dealer warehouses.

Thanks - I got the OEM one from Reinz, through FCP. The site gave me a fit error for the Genuine BMW version (??)

I may just pick up one from the dealer just to have on hand in case it all goes to crap.


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[PDXPeter]

Use the OEM O-ring. I tried off-the-shelf O-rings and they didn't quite fit right. Always fun to turn the engine on and have it spraying oil all over. The OEM one is a couple bucks and there were a ton available at the local dealer warehouses.

[majdomo]

Oil filter housing gasket replacement - some questions

Hah, ignore my old advice in those linked threads about the grey RTV. Spray stuff is what you want!

Thanks! It looks like Permatex only makes the copper stuff in spray form, I saw one of the earlier posters use this, will that work? Ordering off Amazon later!

Never mind - found the spray!

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[bmwman91]

Hah, ignore my old advice in those linked threads about the grey RTV. Spray stuff is what you want!

[majdomo]

Phew, glad I asked! Thanks very much for the links, I did a search a while back and came up empty handed.

Still learning, grasshopper here...thanks!!


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[jaredmac11]

snug tight and then a bit more. These are just sealing the case, not holding the drivetrain together. Definitely not 40 ft lbs.

[Gkwan]

I think that 40ft-lbs is too much and you will strip out all of your bolts if you use that torque.

When I did my oil filter I used this thread which helped

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=275760

and found a copy of the E36 service manual which covers the M42/44 engines specifically, but doesn't provide guidence on the oil filter housing to block bolt torque spec it seems

7-10ft-lbs is what people seem to be using, I think I went with 7ft-lbs

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=303900

Good luck!

Nice, thanks for the tips! Is one Permatex better than the other? Also, others had a different point of view on sealer, these are paper gaskets and I’m not keen on redoing this one, just want to make sure I’m doing it correctly.

Any words of wisdom on torque? Planning on 40 ft-lbs (think this is the setting for the lower oil pan to the block, will double check) but could be not enough?


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[majdomo]

Nice, thanks for the tips! Is one Permatex better than the other? Also, others had a different point of view on sealer, these are paper gaskets and I’m not keen on redoing this one, just want to make sure I’m doing it correctly.

Any words of wisdom on torque? Planning on 40 ft-lbs (think this is the setting for the lower oil pan to the block, will double check) but could be not enough?


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[Balleristic31]

^ I agree on the gasket spray. I prefer permatex copper spray lightly applied to either side of the gasket.

[bmwman91]

Also be sure to apply a little clean motor oil to the rubber O-ring and bore that it inserts into. Otherwise it can catch and roll/twist, failing to seal. Obviously avoid knocking ANY crud into this bore since it is the clean oil inlet to the engine, and stuff like main bearings and lifters don't like dirt in them.

I usually spray a thin layer of Permatex High-Tack Non-Curing gasket sealer onto both sides of the paper gasket and let it sit/dry for ~5 minutes. This both helps to hold it in place, and to ensure a decent seal against the metal faces. The spray can stuff is good because you can get it on there nice and thin, versus applying thick goop which allows the paper webs to squeeze out of place. THIN is key.

[majdomo]

Do yourselves a favor and go to the Dollar Tree and pick up 5 bottles for $5 of 'LA's Totally Awesome Cleaner'. Its a yellow chemical in a clear bottle with read writing.

Great degreaser. I prefer it over brake clean (except for cleaning brakes) and stuff like Purple Power. Saves me heaps of money on degreasers that can be 3-10x as much and works just as well, if not better.

Good tip. I have a big bottle of that stuff under the sink and it’s super cheap, will give it a shot before buying anything stronger. I have some super greasy areas on the front part of the engine from this (been leaking a while, but a slow seep rather than puking oil). Eventually will do the entire engine compartment, when I get around to swapping out the noise dampening pad on the underside of the hood.

Parts arrive Monday. It’ll be good to get this ticked off the punch list!


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