Leaking oil filter! :(

[Joe Webb]

Hi there,

My car is finally on the road and is 99% completed but after having cleaned out the centrifugal oil filter, it slings oil all over my engine bay and onto the exhaust.

the leak is quite bad but only happens when it is running I think.

When I cleaned the filter, I replaced the filter cap on the wrong orientation. Today I corrected that but the leak is as bad if not worse. The gasket looks ok to me and the bolts are very tight.

the oil i put in is 10w40. I think it is too thin, but is it thin enough to cause such a bad leak?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Joe

[Pete126]

Hi Joe, there should be a rubber 0 ring on the cover has yours got this?

[Joe Webb]

yes mine has that, I didn't buy a new one, I just used the one that was already on it but it seemed fine to me.

It's almost as if the gunk inside the filter was forming the seal and now I've cleaned it out the oil is getting pushed past the gasket

I ordered a new o ring from ricambio that should in theory be here on Saturday, but if there's any other reason for it to leak so badly I won't have time to fix it lol. (Unless I figure it out before I try the gasket)

Sad times

[Joe Webb]

Put the o ring on and it leaked just as badly, basically ricambio supplied the wrong o-rings so I took it apart again and used the old gasket covered in instant gasket

Worked really well, back on the road again

[Pete126]

That's good news Enjoy

[Joe Webb]

I am! 

[Bambino126]

Ricambio should have known better than that - it's a very common part. They probably sent the thin version that goes at the rear bearing carrier.

Glad you sorted the problem Joe but that O-Ring is supposed to be changed at every single oil change.

[Gadge]

Ricambio are a very poor company to deal with I've found. I once bought a window winder mechanism off then once. When I fitted it the spindle snapped on the first turn due to a bad weld. I phoned them up and said I needed one urgently as the car was at a show the following weekend but all he said was that I had to purchase another one at £25 and send the old one back so begrudgingly I did only to never get a refund or phone call back despite a number of emails. I will NEVER use them again instead I use axle girsel - even though they are based in Germany they are super quick with there deliveres and are nit bad prices either..., a lot cheaper in some instances than ricambio

[Joe Webb]

Yeah I was initially impressed because I rang them up to see if it would arrive on the Saturday and they basically gave me saturday delivery for free

But their cock up cost me so much time and effort, I'm just glad it only cost 2 quid

I'll change the o ring next time, or if it starts leaking