Oil Leak Questions

[ianc]

Good evening gents,

My wife chastised me a week or so ago about there being oil on my side of the garage. News to me! Backed the old girl out and had a look and sure enough, quite a bit of oil. I put it on the stands, pulled the pan and took a look but nothing really stood out on the bottom of the engine as the culprit, so I put everything back together and came on here to do some reading (I think I did that backwards).

I should mention that the car is a 2010 135i with ~57K miles on the clock. It seems fairly clear to me that both the oil filter housing gasket (OFHG) and the attached oil cooler thermostat plate on it are both leaking, so those will need to be R&R'ed for sure.

I've also heard that these cars can leak from the VANOS solenoids as well. Tonite I pulled off the air inlet hoses from the airbox and where they attach above the radiator for a better look, and here's where the questions come in. The area around where the VANOS solenoids bolt into the engine is just caked with oil and crud:





Is it fairly common for the O-rings on the solenoids to leak at this mileage? Or does this look like accumulated crap from the the OFHG? Shoud I just go ahead and replace them anyway? They appear to be pretty easy to do...

In terms of the OFHG unit, I've read some DIY's and it appears to be a bit of a day-killer, but doable. In taking a look tonite, it seems like pulling the fan out is the way to go to get some access in there. I've read that once you pull the torx bolt out of the top left corner and move the top small coolant line and power cables, it should pull up and out when the side clips are released. Anything further to worry about? I see a largish hose on the driver's side which seems to attached by a kind of a large clip on a rubber block:



Does the hose clip just need to be pried off with a screwdriver, or will it lift up and out somehow? Anything else to know about fan removal?

Another question is the large coolant hose that attaches to the OFH:





I believe this must be one of these quick-connects I've been seeing reviled so much. From just looking at this, I don't really see how it's supposed to come loose. I watched the Bavauto water pump vid and they mentioned them as well, but there were no close-up shots to show how they work. Any further description?

Finally, I was thinking of doing intake gaskets when I loosen the intake to get that pesky third OFHG bolt. Most DIY's I see don't mention it however. I remember with my 911's, everytime an intake came off, the gasket had to be replaced. Are these different? Smart idea to replace? Anything special about it?

Finally, does anyone have a part number for the o-rings which go on the metal oil lines where they bolt into the thermostat housing? Second to last pic shows the lines entering the block, which is Part #9 here:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=11_3971

I know I'm kind of rambling here, but thanks for your thoughts, experiences and advice,

ianc

[TheeGovernor]

ofh is leaking for sure. The vanos solenoids have orings that can be replaced. part 11367548459 The large clip you see pops out when you remove the fan. The radiator hose has an oring that goes bad so consider replacing the hose. It uses a snap ring. The intake manifold gaskets are not really needed at that low of mileage but they are cheap. The part number for the oil cooler lines is 17222245358

[Dackelone]

I also think its your OFH seals that are leaking. Perhaps its your vanos o-rings, but I've not seen that before. IF you were to replace the Vanos seals... I would just buy two new vanos sensors, around $100 each. They do go bad, with long oil change intervals.

Those quick disconnects hoses - just pull up the clip about a half of a inch, then slide the hose off. On coolant hoses... they can be stuck on. When I did my e39 hoses, I used a pry bar and nudged it with a dead blow hammer. I would also say to replace that hose. You can then see how those quick connects work on the new hose.

Since you will be doing the OFH and intake manifold gaskets... you might as well have a carbon cleaning done. I bet your valves are looking not that pretty. Its something I probably need to do on my car too.

Dackel

[ianc]

Hi guys, thanks for the info!

I've gone ahead and ordered up the gaskets and such from Bavauto, so will be tackling this shortly. I took another look at the upper radiator hose and it looks pretty good, so I think I'll chance it and leave it alone, although I will do intake gaskets. How much coolant can I expect to lose when I remove that upper hose? Do I need to remove the undertray and put a dishpan under there to catch it all, or will it just be a bit? Am I running through a bleed cycle after, or just top up?

Dack, I actually did have the carbon blasting done already. The 'before' pics the fellow showed me were pretty gross, but I didn't notice an enormous performance difference afterwards. I did throw a Mishimoto catch can on there though just to ease that situation down the road however. I wish they had let me know about the OFHG seeing as though they had the manifold off already though. Sigh...

I did grab the VANOS o-rings and will take the solenoids out and clean them. I'm not getting any VANOS related codes so I don't think I'll hazard $275 on two new ones, but I do have a little stutter at idle occasionally, so cleaning them seems logical. I was thinking injectors, but we'll see...

Thanks again fellas,

ianc

[ianc]

Well, I just finished this up over the weekend. It was a really long and brutal job, mostly because of the amount of gross oil sludge cleanup to do, but also because of the removal of the intake manifold.

I must say here that this has got to be one of the stupidest designs I've ever seen in my life! What moronic team of engineering school dropouts designed this in such a way that the intake has to be removed\loosened to get at that last Q@^$^%^!@#$ oil filter housing bolt?!!! WTF? Especially since the 'designed to fail' gaskets have to be changed every four years! Way to go BMW, yay!

I suppose it would be been easier just to slide the intake back a bit, but I really wanted to replace the intake gaskets since they'd been in there since new, and I'd had the carbon-blasting done toward the end of last year, so they'd already been off once.

What is the secret to getting that intake off? I removed the screw holding the charge pipe to the bracket towards the front of the car from the throttle plate, then took the throttle plate off altogether from the intake along with the boost pressure sensor wire, but trying to maneuver it around the charge and PVC pipes at the rear of the engine compartment enough to get it off the mounting studs really sucked in a big major way! After that, I thought I was home free, but no, there's still some crazy bracket down underneath holding a small electrics box on that I couldn't really get my arm down far enough to loosen. Trying left me coated with sweat, back aching and arms covered with bruises. Where did I go wrong? Finally I just managed to get the new gaskets in there, but my vocabulary did not improve...

On the plus side, I didn't lose much coolant from the top hose; only a cup or so since the front of the car was jacked up. I didn't bleed afterwards, just topped up and it seems fine. The car also seems to idle a little more smoothly since I took the VANOS solenoids out and cleaned them. If you're not pulling the VANOS solenoids out, you don't really need to take the fan out either, which is not that difficult, just kind of fiddly on the drivers side with that charge pipe bracket hitting the fan on it's way in and out.

Oh well, saved a grand, but my arms and body feel like I paid every penny of it. I'll be so ready to do THAT again in four years. NOT!

Thanks for the advice guys,

ianc

[1mang]

I would suggest you replace your serpentine belt (or at the very least clean it). The oil might cause premature wear and/or even slip off!

[ianc]

Hi 1mang,

I took a look at it and it didn't seem oily. It actually looked pretty good, although I'm sure that and the water pump are coming soon.

What's the average service life of the belt?

Thanks for the comment,

ianc

[1mang]

Mine went out at 83k miles...but I had the same leaks as you. Coincidence? I think not!

Not sure what the service life for BMW is but Honda/Acura is at 100-120k.

Another indicator is a squeaky belt which I had as well but didn't fix in time.

http://my1series.com/2015/03/23/n54-...e-belt-issues/

[ianc]

Wow, looks like you had a real horror show on your hands with that serpentine belt. Great detective work in tracking the missing power steering pump bolts down. Wish I'd seen that post before I did my OFHG's. Would have checked it out...

Great write up. I guess when that belt goes, your entire instrument panel just turns red and you better get your ass over to the side of the road damned quick!

ianc

[1mang]

Oh that's not me....but it's something I found during my own serpentine belt fiasco

[ShocknAwe]

Did mine a few weeks ago. My block looked just like yours. Leak was coming from OFHG and OFCG, cooler gasket was leaking worst. I cleaned up everything with liberal amounts of brake cleaner. Took a really long time to get the whole area de-gunked.

As far as pulling the IM off, it can be tricky. There are a lot of wires and vac hoses that can get in the way, and those bolts are LONG. Ultimately, the CP comes off and needs to be pushed out of the way. DV vac hose nipple is brittle and scary. There's a wiring harness on the right side by the intake side of cylinder 6 that needs to be taken off. Then it should pull out. I pulled mine off far enough to check out how nasty my valves were getting, and to check the IM gaskets as I had purchased replacements. IM gaskets were in great shape (72k miles).

[ianc]

Thanks for the description on the intake removal ShocknAwe. I looked a little further and found another good descrip over at e90post in an HPFP replacement DIY:

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=654820

Good to know about that little 'evil black box'...

ianc