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  #1  
Old 01-20-2011, 10:24 PM
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m62 oil leak, front passenger side

I'm trying to find the source of a pretty nasty oil leak in my 2002 X5 4.4. It's bad enough that if I leave a piece of cardboard under it after driving, within an hour it will have at least a softball size oil stain on it.

It has 145k miles, so pretty much everything is at least seeping a little, but there has to be something causing it to gush out like that. It's mainly coming from the front passenger side, about halfway down the engine. The valve cover is seeping a little, the front main seal appears to be seeping just a little, the cam solenoid gasket is pretty dry.

I really can't see anything wet from the top, but looking from below, everything is soaked. The highest point I can see it coming from is around the A/C compressor and the block, but can't see up in there enough to tell where from.

I'm going to get a mirror and try to get a better look around, but does anyone have any ideas what gaskets/seals/parts are in that area that could potentially leak?

Thanks!
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  #2  
Old 01-21-2011, 10:40 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jgood View Post
I'm trying to find the source of a pretty nasty oil leak in my 2002 X5 4.4. It's bad enough that if I leave a piece of cardboard under it after driving, within an hour it will have at least a softball size oil stain on it.

It has 145k miles, so pretty much everything is at least seeping a little, but there has to be something causing it to gush out like that. It's mainly coming from the front passenger side, about halfway down the engine. The valve cover is seeping a little, the front main seal appears to be seeping just a little, the cam solenoid gasket is pretty dry.

I really can't see anything wet from the top, but looking from below, everything is soaked. The highest point I can see it coming from is around the A/C compressor and the block, but can't see up in there enough to tell where from.

I'm going to get a mirror and try to get a better look around, but does anyone have any ideas what gaskets/seals/parts are in that area that could potentially leak?

Thanks!
You may want to take the black plastic belly pan off, some oil accumulate over time there. I can't recall any oil hose in the front of the engine on passenger side, valve-cover and timing chain gaskets are suspect here.

To be sure, I'll pressure wash the oil leak, put dye in the oil and a week later check where the dye leads you to. GL
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Old 01-21-2011, 11:06 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HPIA4v2 View Post
You may want to take the black plastic belly pan off, some oil accumulate over time there. I can't recall any oil hose in the front of the engine on passenger side, valve-cover and timing chain gaskets are suspect here.

To be sure, I'll pressure wash the oil leak, put dye in the oil and a week later check where the dye leads you to. GL

Yeah I pulled the plastic skidplate and the metal skidplate off, as well as removed the fan, radiator, all intake hoses, airbox, etc... (I was replacing the rad, so had to remove that stuff anyway), and was still unable to locate the leak. I've done a lot of work on cars, including swapping an e36 engine into my e30, auto to 5 speed conversions, all kinds of crap. But this one has me stumped because there is just no room in the engine bay of an X5 to see anything.

I think I'm going to do the valve cover gaskets, timing cover gaskets, and vanos seals. I'll probably end up doing the water pump and thermostat while I'm in there. Any other recommendations?
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Old 01-23-2011, 01:28 AM
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Did you do it already?

What was the source....

I'm in the exact same boat with my 4.4.

Dry on top, wet down below.
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  #5  
Old 01-23-2011, 09:33 PM
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Originally Posted by jgood View Post
Yeah I pulled the plastic skidplate and the metal skidplate off, as well as removed the fan, radiator, all intake hoses, airbox, etc... (I was replacing the rad, so had to remove that stuff anyway), and was still unable to locate the leak. I've done a lot of work on cars, including swapping an e36 engine into my e30, auto to 5 speed conversions, all kinds of crap. But this one has me stumped because there is just no room in the engine bay of an X5 to see anything.

I think I'm going to do the valve cover gaskets, timing cover gaskets, and vanos seals. I'll probably end up doing the water pump and thermostat while I'm in there. Any other recommendations?
Vanos seAls are stupid design!!! They are leaking a lot on high rpms
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Old 01-24-2011, 07:13 PM
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Didn't do it yet, just ordered all the parts now. I looked up under the truck again, and in the back of the engine, the valve cover gaskets are leaking pretty bad, from the sides and the back. So regardless, this stuff needs done. If it fixes my leak in the front, great. If not, I eliminated a bunch of stuff!
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Old 01-28-2011, 03:45 PM
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Parts came in today. Will post many pics and try to take notes. There's a few write-ups out there, but it can't hurt to have another!
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  #8  
Old 01-29-2011, 12:46 AM
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I'm 110% sure the gaskets are where I'm leaking from. I had to break them off in chunks of plastic, as opposed to peeling off rubber.

So far I have the passenger side covers removed and soaking in cleaner. Tomorrow night I'll hit the passenger side, and Sunday reassemble it all.

The only surprises so far are the fact that I lost the rear most fuel injector clip (I am praying it fell into a location where it can just hide instead of getting into trouble). I also removed the passenger side timing cover without removing the vanos solenoid. It's tight, and required some defying physics, but it worked. The drivers side looks possible as well, we'll see. Everything else went smooth. It is hard work, but it's nothing that would make me want to pay $1k plus to have a dealer do it.





UPDATE:

Drivers side valve cover and timing cover are now off, after another 2 hours of work tonight. There is not much clearance, but once again, I managed to get the timing cover off without removing the vanos solenoid, so it looks like this can be done without the deep 32mm vanos solenoid socket at all. Obviously, if you don't like really tugging on things in certain directions, wondering if they will break, you will prefer to spend the money on the socket.

Last edited by jgood; 01-31-2011 at 10:01 AM.
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Old 01-31-2011, 10:01 AM
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Finished up the job and drove the X5 to work today. Every time I stopped at a light, I smelled oil. Got to work, popped the hood, and it was smoking a bit. Felt around the edges of the valve cover, where the gasket is, and got fresh oil on my fingers on the drivers side.

Awesome.
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  #10  
Old 01-31-2011, 10:26 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jgood View Post
Finished up the job and drove the X5 to work today. Every time I stopped at a light, I smelled oil. Got to work, popped the hood, and it was smoking a bit. Felt around the edges of the valve cover, where the gasket is, and got fresh oil on my fingers on the drivers side.

Awesome.
Did you replace those rubber grommets? Like dozen of them per cover.
Also I found it very hard to put the cover on the driver side back especially to make the half-moon section to align with engine block.
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