Am I missing a bolt?
 

adter

Is that not one of the valve cover bolts and one of the 15 sealing washers?

http://www.xoutpost.com/attachments/...bolt-image.jpg

That looks like one of the rubber bumper located on the plastic engine cover. take off the engine cover (the one with BMW on it) and look at the underside of the cover.

Here's the part number. 11121730352

thats a valve cover bolt. adn the plastic piece is an offset on the plastic engine cover. Your leak is likely a OFHG seal.

What many are calling the "valve cover bolt" is really a "valve cover cap nut" and includes the special sealing washer, but I think you get the idea. I am saying this so you don't get confused when it has female threads and not male threads...

If it's missing, your valve cover will have a vacuum leak and might seep oil. I'm surprised you haven't noticed it running rough due to the vacuum leak. Don't be too surprised if it was lost/dropped and a replacement installed - just spoke to someone that found a years-old lifter part in his oil pan (turned out nothing was wrong, a mechanic had dropped it during valve work, had installed a new one, and it took years to find its way into the pan)

That nut does not fit in the hole you showed in your first photo. I don't recognize that location (but I have the 4.4i).

A common issue when people replace the OFH gasket:
- Aftermarket is no good. Dealer gasket is only $5 and is the way to go.
- Failure to torque the bolts #1-#4 in sequence (I posted info in forum).

5 bucks for a valve cover gasket from a bmw dealer? Which one?

He said Oil Filter Housing Gasket. They're probably $6.00+ these days.

Oops. I thought we were all talking about VCG's.

Not sure, but perhaps it's supposed to be emtpy so you could bolt an engine hoist up to the head (if that's the back of the head pictured) to aid in engine or cylinder head removal? It's hard to tell exactly what we're looking at from that pic though.