Just wanted to share something I did over the weekend. During my last oil change for my 2011 M56x, I noticed a bit of oil leaking ever so slightly from the oil filter area. I did a bit of digging and found that the gasket behind the oil cooler where the filter screws in sometimes can be a cause of oil leaks.
So I ordered up the replacement gasket (# 21304-JK20A) and here's what I did.
1. Remove the plastic tray to get access to the oil filter area
2. Remove the oil filter.
3. Using a 22mm wrench, loosen and remove the oil cooler bolt bolt:
4. Move the oil cooler to gain access to the backside. The gasket will be on the inner lip. I forgot to take a picture with it in place. Here's a picture of the backside of the cooler with the gasket removed:
Here's a comparison of the old gasket (right) vs new gasket (left). The old gasket actually looked OK, but I replaced it anyway.
5. Replace the gasket, screw the oil cooler bolt back on using the 22mm wrench
6. Screw on the oil filter of choice
In hindsight, I probably didn't have to replace the old gasket, which looked quite new. I suspect that this was replaced when my car was in for the timing chain recall and the dealer replaced it then. I noticed that the oil filter bolt was quite loose, so most likely I just needed to tighten it a bit. I'll be double checking that bolt at every oil filter change now.
Thanks,
Tom
