E60 BMW 528i Oil Pan Leak

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Originally Posted By: Vikas

So, rather than trying to re-torque the bolts, you are going to buy brand new bolts anyway and have your friend spend hundreds of dollars so that you can fix his oil leak? Explain that logic to me please!


I already tried to talk him out of resealing the oil pan, but that idea didn't quite work. For the record, the oil pan gasket and aluminum bolt set totaled less than $50 from the dealer.

Re-torquing the bolts sound like a great idea...not. I have a feeling that these one-time use aluminum bolts (that require angle-torque) are not going to be friendly to any further tightening.

Clearly, you fail to grasp the concept of only doing proper repairs when working on another person's car. I'd rather make him pay for a proper repair than to put myself in a situation where I have to fix a big mess (that I caused) because I tried to save him a few bucks.

If someone's going to have me work on their car, it's getting fixed the correct way by-the-book (and they're going to pay for it) or they can go find someone else.
 
Critic, don't even think of retorquing those bolts, they are TTY.
With many TTY bolts you can get away with it, MB even gave a measurement for some TTY head bolts but these are a real one time only bolt and fragile ones at that.

Before getting into this look at the oil pressure sending unit. I don't know about the 08 but the older ones were on the back of the head and were a common leak.
If its wet, change it and clean everything off and see what happens.
 
You are going to put the new bolts anyway, so what is the worst that can happen if you re-torque them as it is?

I mean if you are going to install a brand new part, there is nothing wrong in trying to see if you can fix the old part. There is no downside to that approach. If the old part could not be fixed or it gets broken even worse, so what? You were going to replace it anyway!

That is the part I am not getting it.

Why is Trav suggesting he check the oil pressure sending unit? TheCritic has already made the diagnosis that the car needs new oil pan gasket. Don't you trust his diagnostic ability?
 
The bolts are aluminum and already stretched and have a sealant/ceramic anti seize compound on them from the factory. Do i really need to explain why you don't want to retorque them?

Pan gaskets are common enough but some of the inline 6 engines had a OPS that is hidden from view and only leak when the engine is running
If you don't know its there it can look like its coming down the rear of the block almost like a rear seal leak.
You know this already you Googled it so whats the point here?

The guy is doing his best to do the job and some people want to help him if i can in some way. Whats the problem?
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas


Why is Trav suggesting he check the oil pressure sending unit? TheCritic has already made the diagnosis that the car needs new oil pan gasket. Don't you trust his diagnostic ability?


Maybe The Critic was unaware of the possibility that the oil pressure sender is located there. All he has to do is stick his hand back there and feel for it and if it's wet. It would be a shame to mess with the oil pan if there's nothing wrong with it, or do a RMS. It's easy enough to rule out the oil pressure sender. JMO
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: Vikas


Why is Trav suggesting he check the oil pressure sending unit? TheCritic has already made the diagnosis that the car needs new oil pan gasket. Don't you trust his diagnostic ability?


Maybe The Critic was unaware of the possibility that the oil pressure sender is located there. All he has to do is stick his hand back there and feel for it and if it's wet. It would be a shame to mess with the oil pan if there's nothing wrong with it, or do a RMS. It's easy enough to rule out the oil pressure sender. JMO


Heaven forbid anyone take any good advice. Like Trav is some sort of dummy? He's only trying to help save money and time because he knows some tendencies. Platform specific knowledge is golden, especially on a make like BMW.
 
Please do explain to me why can't he re-torque them before taking the stretched one-time-use-only bolt off? What if they had come lose? Heck, he is going to throw them anyway, so why not try to see if they were loose to being with? Once again, I am not understanding the downside or you are saying that if they are loose, they can not be re-tightened. Or you saying that if he re-tightens those bolts, his oil pan is going to fall off on the road? I can't imagine it making the leak catastrophically worse. Or they have to be replaced along with the gasket right then and there rather than seeing if the leak becomes less after re-tightening them again. I am rational person, so explain to me logically why the approach I suggested is fatal. He tries it, the leak stays the same or gets worse or gets better. In first two cases, he is no worse off and starts his repair process.

The point was before going after the most expensive solution, rule out the cheaper ones. Now if replacing the oil pan gasket was trivial, then it would make perfect sense to just go for it.

He *must* have already ruled out everything else before deciding to embark on this repair. Wouldn't it be extremely bone-headed move to replace the oil pan gasket after going through all the trouble if the oil leak is from somewhere else rather than the oil pan? He won't ever be able to show up his face here :)

Trav suggested it very gently to him but I am just a being little rude (we are all friends here, so little bit of ribbing should be excused!) about the entire approach taken by him.
 
If you try to retorque these aluminum bolts that are in an aluminum block for all this time/miles there is a very good chance they will break off in the block.
Then if he doesn't do the job he needs to get that out or it will have a larger leak, you do not invite this sort of fiasco.

You cannot retorque an already stretched TTL (Torque To Yield) aluminum bolt, some metal ones you can away with, its not the right thing to do but you can, aluminum is another story.
The only reason a TTY bolt comes loose is if the threads let go eg N* head bolts but that is not the case on this engine.
Originally Posted By: Vikas
He *must* have already ruled out everything else before deciding to embark on this repair. Wouldn't it be extremely bone-headed move to replace the oil pan gasket after going through all the trouble if the oil leak is from somewhere else rather than the oil pan? He won't ever be able to show up his face here :)

Come on now. You never missed something? I miss stuff stuff from time to time that might be hidden under some panel or behind a splash shied. I am not infallible, the last human that was died more than 2000 years ago.
Missing this sensor if it does in fact reside on the rear of the head on this engine would not be hard to miss for anyone not familiar with it. No shame there.
The guy asked for input on this job and said..
Originally Posted By: The Critic
Can anyone provide some tips on this job? This is new territory for me.

I respect his efforts an having the balls to say i don't know everything about his job. If he were closer i would get in my car and go help him. Which i have been known to do. LOL
Please leave this man alone, if you cant help him then let someone who can or wants to give it a shot. Isn't that the point of this board or have we come to the point we just ridicule posters for asking questions?
 
Along with the OPS Trav suggests, I would also look closely at the oil filter base gasket.....many have thought they had a pan leak only to discover it was the base gasket.

And, only a tool would try to re-torque a one-time-use aluminum TTY bolt. Doing so will cause a lot of uncomfortable, timely work.
 
I am way out of my depth here, but could he use non aluminium reusable bolts, replace them one at a time (so he doesn't have to remove the entire oil pan), and then see if the leak stops.

If it doesn't, then do the fuller repair.
 
Sure if in the unlikely event for some reason one had come loose, just use a low torque value like 10Nm.
For some reason they feel it needs a TTY bolt, being a small diameter bolt going into aluminum maybe they feel this isn't possible with a steel bolt. Just a guess.

I suspect someone has just used regular 8.8 flange bolts with a bit of blue loctite and torqued them to 12 Nm and had no problem. Its not spec so i wouldn't recommend it on a customer car.
 
Originally Posted By: Fleetmon

And, only a tool would try to re-torque a one-time-use aluminum TTY bolt. Doing so will cause a lot of uncomfortable, timely work.


+1
 
I guess it's possible for a RWD car to have a subframe; I was just under the impression that only FWD cars have a subframe. By the way, some manufacturers use the term "Engine Cradle."
 
Have you verified that it is actually the pan gasket? The oil filter housing gasket can make a huge mess. That said, the pan gasket is starting the seep on my son's 165k mile 2004 X3 2.5- talk about a PITA job...
 
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
I guess it's possible for a RWD car to have a subframe; I was just under the impression that only FWD cars have a subframe. By the way, some manufacturers use the term "Engine Cradle."


All the 79+ Mustangs have front subframes, usually referred to as K members. It is what you pretty much have to have with a unibody RWD platform.
 
Yesterday, the car was in my possession to replace the thrust-arm/tension strut assemblies and to perform a vehicle check. So, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the leak in question:

Undercovers removed:
DSC_1308 by thecritic89, on Flickr

DSC_1309 by thecritic89, on Flickr

DSC_1313 by thecritic89, on Flickr

Drops of oil around some of the oil pan screws:

DSC_1315 by thecritic89, on Flickr

Major splatter, or drain plug leak? Probably both:

DSC_1310 by thecritic89, on Flickr
 
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It doesn't look that terrible. I'd wipe it down, replace the drain plug crush washer since that looks like its leaking and watch it. You could try to throw a wrench on the pan bolts and see if they will tighten a bit.
 
Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
It doesn't look that terrible. I'd wipe it down, replace the drain plug crush washer since that looks like its leaking and watch it. You could try to throw a wrench on the pan bolts and see if they will tighten a bit.
You must be new to this topic! Both these suggestions were shot down previously.
 
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