Need help!!! I broke the top tower off my oil filter housing
 

I was being really dumb and turned the nut the wrong way. The literally sheared the top tower. How can I get this out and replace it? My girlfriend is going to kill me because we were supposed to go camping this weekend. Here's a link to pictures of the damage: imgur: the simple image sharer. Please help me!

i am not sure but they may be threaded in ...
probibly licktited in ,

At worst it was a press in part ...

Vice grips? Twist out? If it's press in, I would think you could replace it with a bolt from the bottom.

Youre not in too deep yet, but if you have a hammer in your hand, put it down.
You snap off that ear and youre not going camping anytime soon...

As far as I know that is a Studd that is screwed in. there have been threads where others have stripped it out, and slipped in a bolt from the bottom. tighten the nut and you are good.

In this situation, you might have enough sticking out to grab it with a pair of Vice Grips.

Another thought, looks like you have some threads, put on a nut and Buzz it with a welder, and remove it. remember, Righty tighty, lefty loosey".



Looked at it again, if there is a thin 13mm Jam nut available , you might have enough threads for two tightened together, turn the lower nut and it might come out.


Charlie

It should unscrew. Make sure you turn it counterclockwise as you look down on it. Don't let stuff fall down into the oil filter housing.

It looks like it is pressed in to me? Can I just pull it out with vice grips?

Tried the vice grips, no luck won't even budge

Answer
 

It is a STUD MB# 6069900005.

You can remove it, and use a bolt and washer, from the top down.
http://www.harborfreight.com/12-drive-stud-extractor-69466.html

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I stripped the treads with the vice grips... will that still work?

drill it out

That HF stud extractor should work.

Pretty much all been covered. If you can get it out you just need a Bolt and washer as Hunter said; if you cannot find a new Stud and Nut someplace like ACE Hardware.

If you end up drilling it out and end up using a Bolt shoved up from below you need to flatten the Hex on one side so the Bolt head against the Oil Filter Housing won't force the Bolt to go at an angle.

You had good luck in that the Housing did not Crack.
If you have a Propane Torch try heating the Aluminum before turning it.

It's not.

this is a BAD idea... aluminum doesn't give any warning before liquifying.
sure, heat can help, but you REALLY have to know what you are doing to heat aluminum...
also... um, there's a lot of oil in that area...:eek:

Why not just get one at the junk yard? They're $13 here in SoCal...oh, I forgot there's a half price sale this weekend, so it's even less.

Been doing it for years on the Job and at Home and have never melted Aluminum with a Propane Torch so far.

But, I suppose there is someone who would take things to excess.

One would think that someone doing what I suggested would clamp on the Vice Grips or the Stud remover and heat the area some and attempt to turn the Stud and it not working heat it a little more and attempt to turn and so on.
I think it is more likely the Stud would turn before the Aluminum melts doing it that way.
And, I am a very pessimistic Person.

I'm with D911, I suspect you would get the stud out before you melted the al. I would use caution to make sure you don't start a fire though.

try a pipe wrench, won't slip like a vice grip. put some cardboard down to protect the housing.

As you said you need to be carful of stuff around the area being heated. Those Plastic Vacuum Line melt easily.

So I had a mobile mechanic try to fix things but he made it way worse by 1) cutting the top off the stud 2) trying to drill. What options do I have left? I really don't want to pay to get the car towed.

Jeeeeeezuz, that mobile mechanic needs to be fired. It's up to him to remove it now. What an idiot for cutting off the stud.

now you have to drill it out. What damage has been done when you say he tried to drill and didn't succeed?

Get the top of the stud flat, or whats left. Take centerpunch and tap a depression right in the middle of the stud. use the depression to drill a small pilot hole down the center, then use a larger bit to remove the rest of the stud.

Im guessing thats not what he did, and im also guessing that he just started drilling and damaged the housing by slipping off the harder material of the stud into the softer aluminum of the housing?

If you don't want to get the car towed, then reinstall the oil cap, make sure nothing is hanging up in the stud area, and use a small C-clamp to hold it in position to get the car to a competent mechanic. Id be very careful doing this and observe it while the car sits at idle to see if there is any leakage, but ive done it personally. It is not a fix, its a bandaid to get the car somewhere to work on it, or be worked on.

Just stop.
 

I had this happen on my old 240D once. Broke off the top of one of those oil filter housing studs. I put the cover back on with a new rubber seal, bolted the other side down and c-clamped the side where the bold was sheared off. I drove like that for over 10,000 miles without any problems. even chicken-wired the c-clamp around the housing so it wouldn't come loose while driving. Never had one problem. Of course the engine on that thing had so much damn blow-by I didn't care if the thing would've fell off anyway. When I sold the car, the clamp was still on it, and as far as I know, the new owner has never had a problem with it either.

But I just reread what you wrote up top ... without a little bit of the stud left, the hole in the top of the filter housing will have nothing to mate to and keep it from sliding around. You probably gotta pull the housing off now and extract the bolt from the bottom being very careful not to further damage the aluminum threads. I'd make that mobile mechanic do it for free.

Why could he not drill it out? (Did he simply give up or did he start to damage the housing, as somoene else suggested?)

At this point you either have to use the C-clamp temp fix, as suggested, or bite the bullet and pay for the car to be towed to a mechanic who actually possesses the skills to do this work. From my experience, the way things are in my area, said mechanic will have some grey hair and possibly an entire headful.

Hey dantheman451... Where on god's green earth are you? Maybe one of us could help! Put your location info in your profile or in a displayed signature!

throwing this out there, but if its really ruined, he could possibly notch the hole on the housing, instead of drilling it out. It would be like a plumbing connection for iron pipe ect. He could leave the through hole in the top cover, and use a wingnut with a T-bolt to grab the housing

Hey thanks for all the great support. I live in San Francisco if anyone is willing to help, I'll buy you a case of beer if that's your thing. The mechanic who came was a very threatening Russian guy so I didn't want to question when he was done. The C clamp sounds like a great idea to get it to the shop. I read that one use actually did this for 10,000 miles. The car isn't is great shape and I bought it for about $1000. Would this be an option? I'm a college student so paying to have a vintage Mercedes fixed isn't something I necessarily want to do but will if it has to be done.