M54 oil leak, Top of oil filter canister
 

Hello everyone,
noticed today there is an oil leak between the plastic cap and the filter housing. dripping in multiple areas all along the same edge at the top where the two meet.
the o ring is on there in the groove and it appears to be the right one. it take up almost all of the groove so its a nice and wide o ring. however the large o ring that sits at the top of the threads in the groove seemed to be fine. no marring or nicks.

the two small yellow o rings are on there as well and seem to be in tact. (on the lower, and smaller "stick" portion)


Could this oil leak be from one of the following..
*over/under torque of the plastic cap. (going to get my hands on a torque wrench today.)
*wrong filter (napa gold)
*Could the plastic cap be bent out of shape just a tiny bit?
*could the gasket be in need of being replaced at the back of the housing, would this cause a leak at the filter's cap?



im headed to napa to go replace the filter and o ring and see what happens..
but maybe its time to just replace the whole plastic cap and everything? :huh:
the car has 130k miles and i am running mobile1 5w-30.
thanks for your time.

It's possible the oil filter cap is damaged; but before we conclude that, easy thing to try is change the large o-ring the cap and torque it right. Also, put a dab of oil on the new o-ring before tightening the cap.

Then cleanup the area and check after few days to see if the leak returns.

I ended up changing the large o ring and went to go use the torque wrench to find it was junk.
For now the oil leak stopped.
I went to go clear my chnge micro filter code and saw misfiring on cylinders 3,5,6 but randomly I'm hopin it's only carbon buildup on the plugs since they have not been changed In a long time and are over due.
Any other ideas what would cause a cylinder to misfire?

Misfires can be caused by spark plugs and/or ignition coils. If the misfire is on an entire bank, then I would look at other causes like carbon build up or bad signal from computer itself, etc.

looks like over/under torque
the torque is mentioned on the cap

yes,
the large o ring was actually flattened out. it had no rounded edge like an o ring should. the old o ring was essentially a squared off oring with fairly rounded edges.

car is going in tomorow to hopefully figure out the issue.
i had a diy link to an m54 sprak plug change but the link's pictures are no longer available :o
any other links on this?
i'd rather do the plug change myself. learning these cars is ver important to me :twoup:
i can't say i'd tackle ignition coils however.

If you can change spark plugs, then you definitely can change the ignition coils :-) because to get the spark plugs out, you will need to pull out the ignition coils first.

Camshaft position sensor on intake side. Or bad DISA too. I do not need to mention spark plugs or coils, if you have software you can tell by the amount of misfire. If it's more than 2 cylinders as you state i wouldn't put my money on plugs or coils it's most likely something else. CPS is a better place to start.

the only reason i have a feeling its carbon build up on plugs it because the code reader says its random, and not a whole bank of cylinders.

i will look into the above suggestions of cps and the possibility of a bad disa valve. from what im reading the disa valve is not to difficult to remove and possibly test. Well worth the effort since a whole new disa valve is 200+ :/
i would greatly appreciate any links on a diy plug change or disa removal.
start with new plugs and again check for misfiring cylinders and go from there.

I checked running values and it is was all random. I'm just telling you from experience. if you want, change out the plugs and see. If not you will soon find out.
I mean replacing any of the above requires your to clear shadow memory and reset all adaptions anyway. If you're not doing that then it's not being done properly and you will never know if what you did fixes the situation until a later time. the logical counters all have to be reset in order for the new part to be read correctly. Otherwise you will get a pulse that mixes with a shadow pulse.
Plugs are easy plenty of DIY's, Should take about 30 min. CPS should take about 10-30 min depending on you. I wouldn't touch the DISA at this time, besides you will not know if it's having a problem because the problem is electrical. So scrap the DISA for now and do standard maint. things such as plugs and CPS.