1998 528I Oil Filter Housing Gasket & “Freeze Plugs” Repair (E39)

I'm sorry, no idea.

Hi,

my car has now 328'500 km and since I repair the leakage as you show, I don't see more oil leakage. This repair method is very cheap and fix the leakage very well. Thank you for publishing it! Coronet24

Did my 99 last fall, it had the new type of screw in plugs. Doing my 97 right now and guess what?......... new type of plugs. Build date on the 97 is 6/96. I'm bowing the the Gods of BMW right now.





I'm guessing that someone had the entire housing replaced a long time ago.


BTW, while you are down there and have the alternator out, PLEASE pull the plastic cover off the back of it and clean it out. Guaranteed to be a disgusting mess in there. Both of my cars had leaves and bugs clogging it. I hit it with degreaser, lightly scrubbed the entire alternator with a brush, then hit it with a spray bottle of warm water to rinse it, letting it dry, then I'll hit it with electronics cleaner spray. Don't forget to spray out the duct too. Probably a lot of mess in there as well.

For screw type plugs, what are you guys doing? I'm planning on doing this soon (got a leak coming down and I'm hoping it's not the wet hose coming from the sump). My idea is to use loctite silicone gasket maker on the exterior of the thing; without a hole to screw into (do I want to tap a Allen/Torx hole?) I'm not sure the washer will do anything additional.

Hi guys,

since I've repaired the leakage with the washers, the screws and the high temperature silicone I've a clean engine and no more oil under it.

Actually my 528i has 344'000 km and the serviced VANOS system (Beisan O-Ring) works very well (more couple and less gear changes done by the automatic transmission).

Greetings from Switzerland,

Coronet24

Originally Posted by bmw_n00b13

For screw type plugs, what are you guys doing? I'm planning on doing this soon (got a leak coming down and I'm hoping it's not the wet hose coming from the sump). My idea is to use loctite silicone gasket maker on the exterior of the thing; without a hole to screw into (do I want to tap a Allen/Torx hole?) I'm not sure the washer will do anything additional.

Are you leaking from the plugs? If not, don't bother them. Just pull the housing and replace the gasket. Put some black RTV on the gasket between the housing and the block, and you should be set. I wouldn't try to tap those Torx holes, if you need to open them, get the appropriate sized Torx wrench and do it. You shouldn't be having any leaks from there now though. $5 says it's coming from the gasket.

CN90, you are my new hero. Great (again) DIY post. Weird thing with mine. Followed your instructions exactly and finished in under 2 hours. But dang thin kept leaking. Did it again. Still leaking. Drove 80 miles and no more leaks. Did the gasket just have to seat? Or perhaps I drove by an exorcism and picked up on the blessing. Anyway - great post and thanks!

Thank you CN90 for your detailed post. I have a question for everyone and that is do you simply "dry fit" the new gasket in or should I use some sort of grease, etc.? This is my 3rd E39 and first time doing this myself. I appreciate everyone's helpful thoughts and insights.

I'll be doing this repair in a couple of weeks when in my Christmas vacation. I plan to do it to my wife's e46 330xi first then my e39. I hope I can do both cars in the same day. There is not enough thanks to CN90 for writing this diy, he's a life saver.

Can you describe how you pryed your alternator out? Mine is stuck tightly. I can move it back and forth about a inch.

Nevermind... I took out the right PS pump bolt and thought that was for the alternator. All fixed. Great write up!

we tried using the dealerships o rings, but they were too big.

these are the o rings i used for our e36..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-Oil-Filt...item2eb8e76e50

For the record, there is a warning about iron versus aluminum blocks in this thread today:
> E39 (1997 - 2003) > e39 530i (6cyl) oil leak

Hey guys I have a 2003 530i and I just changed the oil filter adapter gaskit and the way I did it I had to take off the air intake ,air sensor ,power steering reservoir and the alternator and of Course the serpentine belt I had to get help from a friend it took about 3 hrs

Just replaced my the OFH gasket of my 530i (with 190k miles) this past Sunday - and no more oil leaks!!! I also had initially thought it was the oil pan gasket and had actually bought it many months ago (and promptly set it aside because of the DIY difficulty). After the "seepage" became drips, I am glad I surf'd this forum again and found this write-up!

I echo the other posts - THANK YOU, CN90, for this (and other) fantastic DIY write-ups!!!