Tips For Preventing Oil Leaks?

[bmwman91]

I have a pretty juicy oil leak through the oil filter housing gasket, and a lot of weepage from the lower pan gasket. I have some new OEM gaskets on order, and I want to make sure that they don't leak. What all do you guys use to seal things, and do you have any tips for applying it?

I have heard a lot of good things about Permatex "The Right Stuff" on here. Do you coat the paper gaskets with it, or just use it instead of the gaskets? How about Permatex copper spray? Some people seem to have used it on the oil filter housing gasket. As for the filter outlet o-rings, I was just going to put a little silicone grease on them to get them to slide into place, or is that not a good idea?

Thanks!

[econti]

For my pan gasket, I did a layer of gasket goo, then the gasket, then another layer. Let it go tacky on the bench, then mounted it and did it up. I also converted as many of the fasteners as I could to bolt + nut as I found trying to wind on any sort of torque just stripped the thread.
No leaks so far

[varg]

preventing oil leaks? Ditch your m42. With twenty something seals it's going to leak somewhere unless they're all brand new.

On a serious note, the copper spray is good for paper gaskets, like the filter housing and pan, as long as the surfaces are clean and smooth. RTV works too though, it's just messy. I didn't need any grease on the filter housing o ring, just a dab of oil. I have to RTV the hell out of my cam position sensor or it leaks, even with a new o-ring.

[bmwman91]

Cool thanks. I'll try copper spray on the filter housing. Sounds like getting things clean is the real trick.

[ttrousdell]

yes the sealing surfaced have to be clean. I usually go over them with a razor to get heavy stuff then scotch brite. I apply a thin layer of permetex sealer on the gaskets when installing. never had problems after.

[reelizmpro]

There are some very good sealants out there these days. I used Yamabond 4+ by itself in place of all my gaskets except the head/valve cover and my S14 doesn't leak a drop.

[bmwman91]

yes the sealing surfaced have to be clean. I usually go over them with a razor to get heavy stuff then scotch brite. I apply a thin layer of permetex sealer on the gaskets when installing. never had problems after.

Which Permatex product do you use?

There are some very good sealants out there these days. I used Yamabond 4+ by itself in place of all my gaskets except the head/valve cover and my S14 doesn't leak a drop.

How hard is it to get things apart again after "gluing" them in place?

[Vanilla Gorilla]

I took my pan off and ran all the sealing surfaces on my bench mounted wire wheel. I then used a layer of the black permatex sealant, gasket, then another layer of sealant. Made sure to get it around all the bolt holes etc. A thin layer as well, don't want to over due it. But it has been working wonderfully. Also did my rear main and used the same permatex sealant to seal the cover on.

Yamabond and Hondabond are awesome as well. I use that on all my 2 stroke jet ski builds and it works wonderful. I would have just used that but I was out and so was the store haha

[bmwman91]

Cool. So with the Permatex black, do you do the thing where you install the pan with the bolts finger-tight, wait a day and then torque them? I know that some of those things recommend weird procedures.

Any tips for getting the pan off when it is stuck on with old RTV? I tried to drop the pan last year, but it was installed with grey RTV and it won't budge lol. I guess that I'll be spending a lot of time with a scraper and wire brush...uugh.



Last thing. I think that the majority of the oil is actually coming from the oil filter housing. When I installed the housing on the engine (it was a custom rebuilt M42, back in 2013) I probably just did a lousy job or something. The engine has an M44 timing case and M44 oil filter housing, and as some of you may know the M44 filter housing has this black palstic valve thingy in the circular outlet hole. Does anyone have a picture of it correctly installed (since it can go in one of 2 ways)?

I am suspecting that it is the filter housing because I have noticed that I get a big puddle of oil under the car after parking, if I run the engine for 10 seconds or so (moving it in and out of the garage). This leads me to believe that the leak is more severe when the engine is cold and nothing is hot/expanded, so it must be the oil up in the filter housing that is bleeding out. I can't really think of any other way that such a large puddle can be produced from a cold engine. The area around the filter housing is all wet with oil and whatnot too.

I am thinking of using this stuff on the filter housing gasket. Thoughts?

http://www.permatex.com/products-2/product-categories/gasketing/gasket-sealants/permatex-copper-spray-a-gasket-hi-temp-sealant-detail

[reelizmpro]

Not familiar with m42 but on the s14/m20 theres a thermostat valve that likes to leak. Bmw sells a reseal kit for $12. Yours may have something similar.

[TobyB]

JB Weld.

Problem solved!

t

[AndrewBird]

I prefer non-silicone based gasket sealants. I use Permatex #2 sealant. THIN coat on both surfaces, allow to tack, then assemble. I've ripped gaskets in half before the sealant let go. Key is to use as little as possible.

[bmwman91]

Regarding non-silicone sealants...I've read on a few other forums that the Permatex copper gasket spray is darn near impossible to remove if you ever take something apart again. I am thinking of using this stuff instead since I don't need the high temperature resistance of the copper stuff. Anyone have good/bad things to say about it? It sounds like I just need to spray 2-3 coats onto both sides of the filter housing gasket.

http://www.permatex.com/products-2/product-categories/gasketing/gasket-sealants/permatex-high-tack-spray-a-gasket-sealant-detail

Since I got home early from a business trip, I took the oil filter housing off this evening (new parts arrive in a couple of days). Being that the gasket and o-rings are only 2 years old, it is annoying that there is a leak like this, but it sounds like a number of people have had leak issues with this assembly, sometimes within a day of replacing the seals.

I made a couple of observations:
1) The o-rings on the bush are about as hard as a rock! I am amazed (and disappointed) that it only took 2 years and ~10,000 miles to make new ones get to this state. Anyway, it is what it is, and I am replacing the bush and o-rings.
2) ALL of the gasket and o-ring sealing surfaces (on the timing case and filter housing) had paint on them! The engine builder painted all of the aluminum bits with some nice silver/gray paint, which is very "aluminum" colored, which is why I did not notice it during initial assembly when everything was new. It would seem that they forgot to mask the parts before painting them. There was some paint caked against the edge of the o-rings, which was likely not helping anything. 90 minutes with some gloves, acetone and paper towels got all of it off of there and now all of the sealing surfaces are nice, clean aluminum.

So, I have my fingers crossed that when I put it all back together I will remain nice and dry now that things are properly cleaned!

[reelizmpro]

Sounds like they were careless. New rings with a small amount of sealant will seal that right up.

[ttrousdell]

Which Permatex product do you use?

Ultra Black