Nasty Oil leak around oil filter housing/intake manifold
 

Hello,

I hope someone can help me find out what exactly is this? There is a bad oil leak from where you see the small pool of oil in the pictures. It is coming out of the small cylinder area where i have my light pointed.This is located just under the #1 cylinder intake manifold. I want to find out what is this and it seems like something is broken in there. The car is a 2006 525i with about 120k miles.

Thanks!


Attachment 156733

Attachment 156734

Anyone?

Clean up the oil mess with brakes cleaner and monitor the following parts:

1. Oil filter housing gasket.
2. Oil Pressure switch (attached to the oil filter housing)
3. Crankcase vent valve/hose
4. Valve cover gasket

#1 and #2 are cheap and easily fixable.

Good luck!

hey thanks for your reply!

I have already inspected the oil filter housing gasket. It is not leaking from there. I have also replaced the VCG. It is leaking clearly from that part i mentioned before. I dont know if some sort of sensor or plug was there, but it is clearly leaking oil from there. I will try and take a video and post it up. I just need to know what exactly goes there so i can have it fixed.

Thanks for your suggestion though.

I wish there was another E60 around my neighborhood here so i can use it as a reference.

I don't think it is leaking from there. It is leaking to there.


Is the front of your engine covered with oil ?

you can also check oil cooler gasket which is located a bit higher than filter housing gasket, so oil from there can be catched in that spot in your picture.

The part in your picture that has slight amount of oil is where the head of the aluminum bolt for the cylinder head used to be. The head has broken off, a common problem on these engines, leaving the remaining bolt shaft visible in the hole. I have exactly the same problem in my car (2006 525, N52), got the replacement bolts, but have not done the work yet, since the oil leak is minimal. I heard normally there are 1 or 2 bolt heads inside under the valve cover that are likely broken and need replacement also. The kit consists of 3 long bolts about 2.5" long and 1 short one about 1.5".

Just curious, could someone please point out where the four head bolts are located? If you don't mine, please mark the locations for me. Attached are the pictures for references.

Are these the four head bolts you are referring to?
BMW E60 E61 E70 E82 E83 E85 E86 E88 E89 E90 E91 Set of 4 Cylinder Head Bolts | eBay

Thanks,

Daniel

Yes, those are the bolts, the longer ones are actually more like 3.5" long. The BMW part # is 11120392547. As I said I have not done the replacement myself, so I can't say specifically which are the bolts that tend to snap off, although from what I read they are the ones around the vanos, the ones closest to the radiator. If you google "BMW N52 broken cylinder head bolts" you should get plenty of description of the problem.