Replace Your Oil Filter Housing Studs - OM617:
 

Looked under my hood today and noticed oil running down the filter housing. Upon closer inspection, one retaining nut was missing. I found the nut and stud fragment laying between the housing and block.

The broken end of the stud came out with my fingers. I ordered (2) 8 x 1.25mm stus 46.0mm's long to replace them.

The stud appears to have broken cleanly, but did have a distinct (albeit slight) hourglass shape to it. Most probably from 1.3 million miles of being stressed during oil changes.

Check these studs!!!!!!

interesting.
the stud is not supposed to be tightened much. I bet it's 1.3 million miles of PO overtightening... or have you owned it the entire life of the car?

I was literally about to make a thread on this!

Was going to work this morning. Block or two from the house, noticed barely any oil pressure. Pulled over and checked in case it was low - wasn't. Took it back home, shut off, swipe dip and read - bone dry. Noticed a bunch of fresh rainbows on the driveway that weren't there yesterday (it's still dark and pissing rain as it usually is 200+ days / year here) so I add a couple ltrs and start up. Hear a hissing and see oil pouring from the housing. Big black puddle now.

Called in and took the day off. Cleaned up the mess. Drained the rest of the oil. Saw that part of the rubber o-ring was blown out of the cap on the one side. When I pulled the lid, one of the sleeves in the housing that the bolts thread into was up and not sitting flush like it should. Tightened the bolt back down and it sucked the sleeve back in where it should be.

Now, I changed the filter and did all that, put the lid back on and tightened it back down. The one side that came a little free doesn't want to tighten all the way good and tight and I'm afraid it's kinda broken in there and will just cause another leak. Yeah yeah, could be broken from overtightening...

My only confusion is what I should do to fix it. I have another housing handy on a junk scrap motor but I don't wanna change the whole friggin' housing. Plus, the funny thing is they use two different methods.

Car:

http://i.imgur.com/kOXJj.jpg

Spare:

http://i.imgur.com/D7bX0.jpg

The spare has headless bolts that thread through the housing whereas the car has norma bolts going into the housing. The bolts are two different sized heads. Don't know how it got this way. A mechanic replaced the engine summer 2011. Did a decent job for the most part but waaay overcharged and missed some details like this.

heeellp!!

I got the car 20 something years ago.

@ destroy,

Just double-nut and extract the stud, then replace with either stud or bolt. Threads/studs are 8mm x 1.25 46mm long...

Simple enough!

I had a few ideas but wanted to run it by some better minds. I'll try it, thanks.

Can you explain the 'sleeve' comment? I thought the studs were just threaded directly into the housing.

I had this problem six years ago, soon after I acquired my first 240D.
Fortunately, I spotted the huge black puddle before I finished backing from the driveway. Turned out one of the filter-cover studs had pulled out of the aluminum housing. Then discovered this had previously happened to the other stud. A PO or mechanic had modified an 8mm bolt by grinding away part of the bolt-head so it could be inserted from below and function as a stud where there were no longer any threads in the housing. So I duplicated the repair. No further problems until I sold the car this spring. So far no issues with the filter studs in my current 240D and 300TD.

Happy Motoring, Mark

http://i.imgur.com/7xWMj.jpg

See the sleeve between the housing and the bolt? It was actually raised above the housing on mine. Gonna need some longer bolts to go all the way through so I can put a nut on both sides.

If it is stripped, wouldn`t a Heli Coil work?


Charlie

For sure, it didn't depart Stuttgart that way. Threads in cast aluminum don't withstand repeated use very well, hence the use of studs in the original design.

If you want to return to the original design and don't have enough metal left for a M8 stud, you might take a look at an SAE 3/8". It would be a bit smaller than a M10. Or maybe even an oversize 5/16.

Or, you might be able to invert a M8 bolt if you grind part of the head off.

The original studs have an unthreaded portion where they protrude from the filter-housing. I'm not aware of a 'sleeve' there.
If the housing-threads are stripped, a helicoil is an option, but you're still dealing with threads in the aluminum housing carrying the load. Plus you need to buy the helicoil kit and do extra work tapping the Filter-housing ears oversize. Also there's a slight possibility that tapping the ears oversize could weaken them (though this may be insignificant)
In my case, the stud-threads were completely gone, so little or no cutting or drilling was needed to accept a bolt. I already had an an assortment of metric bolts, so it was simple to choose a suitable candidate, grind the bolt head, as a PO had done with the first one, so it could be pushed up from below.
Short of stripping or snapping the bolt itself, or ripping the ears completely off the filter-housing, it's never going to pull loose again.
(At least while I'm maintaining it. Who knows what some oaf at Jiffy-Lube might be capable of!)

Happy Motoring, Mark

That certainly does look like a sleeve in the picture. I wonder what holds it into the housing?

My housing (617.950) is just threaded into the aluminum. The previous poster is correct in that the studs (from Stuttgart) have an unthreaded portion in the center. To my eye, what looks like a 'sleeve' is actually the top threads that have been pulled upward....

Interesting theory, but the funny thing is that what looked like a sleeve on my car isn't just limited to mine. It's also on my old engine, and it looks like it's on the photo I posted that I pulled off of Diesel Giant's website.

Anyway I pulled the bolts from the old engine so it'll be proper from now on but haven't been able to get any hardware to see if I can put a nut on the portion of the bolt that protrudes through to the under side of the housing. This should fix it and keep the stud held firm so the lid will stay on tight. Still convinced there's a "sleeve" of some kind and curious how it's held in there other than magick. ;)