So this past Friday and Saturday I spent working on my trusty 300sd at my parents house (since they have a garage and I live in an apartment complex). I am waging war on oil leaks and went to work replacing the turbo drain, the oil pan check valve, oil pan gasket, oil filter housing gasket and the wonderful oil cooler lines. All of these had leaks and this work was about the messiest and least enjoyable I have ever had to do on any car. Long story short I get done with everything at about 5:30 PM saturday (valentines day) and I'm rushing to get out of my parents because I had a date I didn't really want to brush aside. After taking a long shower and scrubbing off all the oil I had accumulated all over me I get in the car and I'm ready to roll. As a last minute thought, I tell myself that it'd be worth my while to do a few rounds around the block and check everything out before getting on the highway. Sure enough...I pull back into the driveway after going around the block once and there is oil pouring from my engine. I get the car on the ramps and climb under there with a flashlight and can see the oil coming out of the upper oil cooler line fitting at the oil filter housing. I try tightening it a bit, but to no avail. I was in a real rush at this point so I park the car at my parents place and was lucky enough that the had an extra car for me to borrow so I could get out of there. I'm heading back there tomorrow to fix the problem. My hope is that the leak isn't the result of my having stripped the threads on the oil filter housing. I remember though that I hand tightened all the fittings for the most part except for the last few turns with the flare wrench I made (advised by diesel giant), so I am not sure how I could have stripped them. I am wondering if the tip/nipple on the oil cooler line might have been compromised. Whatever it is I just really don't want to have to jack that engine up again and pull those damn lines. If I do have to replace the nipple on the oil filter housing I'm assuming I'm gonna have to pull that part out again (what a pita that was). Will update tomorrow I guess.

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1983 300SD White with Grey interior

It is important that the filter housing fittings be tightened before the hard line clamps are torqued down.

I did the oil cooler lines couple years ago. It sounds as though you were careful not to cross thread, this is good. I'd just loosen what you did up, "giggle it into alignment" ; "give it a good feel":, and re-tighten it where it feels best. You will feel where she wants to be.

Use a back up wrench and tighten snug. Back up wrench holds the thing you are tightening to. I don't think these have to be rock hard tight, just snug and a bit more.

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1982 300SD

Well I discovered the problem. In my haste to put everything back together this past saturday I was trying to seat the upper oil cooler line, but it wouldnt fall into place. In actuality the engine shock mount was binding the line preventing it from fitting into the nipple attached to the oil filter housing. In my rush I started banging on the tip of the line with a pry bar to get it into place, which I finally was able to do.. As a result, the banging left a burr on the lip of the oil cooler line preventing the locking nut from tightening all the way down. a little work with the dremel tool took care of that and now no more leaks. This could have been a lot worse and the worst part is that I know better than to just start banging away it stuff and forcing things. All is well that ends well I guess. Thanksfully it was something minor and it actually left me with enough extra time that was able to adjust my valves and completley degrease the engine . The only bad news is that after all that work I still woke up this morning to find a quarter sized blob of oil underneath my car. When I get home from work I'm gonna try to figure out where its coming from.

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1983 300SD White with Grey interior

Well the good news is with the engine degreased it should be easy to pinpoint the leak.

Glad you didn't strip the threads on the oil cooler.

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2009 ML320 Bluetec
1985 300CD
1981 300TD

Past Mercedes
1979 300TD
1982 300TD
2000 E320 4Matic Wagon
1998 E430
1984 300SD
1980 300SD