F10 535i N55 DIY - Oil filter housing gasket and oil cooler gasket replacement.

[Andrew]

The BMW petrol N Series 4 (N4X) and 6 (N5X) cylinder engines, fitted to a massive number of BMW can suffer from oil leaks from the oil cooler gaskets and my N55 engine is no exception. The nub of the problem is that if oil, in sufficient quantities, leaks from these gaskets, it can then drip onto the auxiliary drive belt beneath. This can damage the belt to an extent it can be flung off the crankshaft pulley. Due to the way this pulley is designed there is only one place the belt can go and that is between the pulley and the timing chain casing, which is also home to the front main oil seal. There have been cases reported of the belt entering the timing casing via the seal which destroys the timing chain drive and simultaneously the oil now pours out of the main seal, and you come to a halt quite quickly needing a new engine.

This job has been on my “To do list” for some time now. Following a recent oil service, I noticed that the oil leak or rather oil sweat from the notorious oil cooler gasket on my 2013 BMW 535i looked just a little bit worse than I remember it being. Nothing for it but to drain down the cooling system and move the inlet manifold to sort it.

Oil flows out of the cylinder head from a main oil gallery direct from the oil pump to be filtered in the oil filter, from the oil filter it then goes into the oil cooler, once cooled it flows back into the oil filter housing and then returns to the cylinder head where it then feeds the main bearings and the valve train. Thus, between all these parts where the oil is pumped, filtered, and cooled there are a couple of gaskets to pass through before it gets to do the essential jobs that it is there for.

To cool the oil, coolant flows out from the cylinder head into the oil filter housing and then into the oil cooler itself. The coolant returns to the water pump by means of an external hose in front of the engine. Both the gaskets in question perform a double role, sealing the oil and coolant as both fluids travel around the engine.

The red dot is showing the location of the oil cooler, behind that sits the oil filter housing in which site the oil filter element under its cap.

You can see the evidence of an oil sweat from the oil cooler to oil filter housing gasket, its on the main radiator top hose too.

Again more evidence of oil coming out of the gaskets, this photo was from May 2022 so well over a year before I did this job and you can see the deterioration in the seals as more oil is visible

In an ideal world the inlet manifold should be completely removed from the engine bay so that the 6No. gaskets at each inlet port can be replaced as they have been disturbed, but I failed miserably/didn’t do enough homework to do this as I was stumped by how to disconnect some wiring looms from the inlet manifold mounted and thus air cooled DME, so with enough wiggle room and an ever ticking clock, I made peace with myself that I could return another day to do these gaskets.

Tools needed

¼” drive ratchets and extensions
6 & 7mm sockets for hose clips
8mm socket for underbelly bolts
10mm socket for mickey mouse flange
11mm socket for inlet manifold nuts/bolts
13 & 15mm sockets for upper cross brace.
T30 and T40 Torx bits
E10 and E12 Torx sockets (E12 deep)
T60 Torx bit and locking pin for belt tensioner
Torque wrench 10 – 30Nm
Coolant Catch pan
Water hose clip pliers
Pick tools for hose clips
Fault code reader to clear codes created during the work.

Parts needed

Upper cross brace to strut bolts
Oil cooler bolts
Oil filter housing bolts
Oil filter housing gasket
Oil cooler gasket
Oil filter and seals
Oil LL04 spec to match what’s in the sump
Coolant (G48 or LC87)

Before doing anything, make sure the battery is fully charged as considerable load will be put on the battery during this work.

Jack up and support the front of the car so that you can remove the front underbelly.

This is so you can catch the coolant as it drains.

You need to remove the upper cross brace

so you can remove the fan

so you can get access to remove bits of the cooling system and remove the auxiliary drive belt

so it doesn’t get contaminated from any oil spills when you remove the oil cooler from the oil filter housing.

This is the problem bolt, (there is always one!), or "that bolt", to remove the third oil filter housing to cylinder head bolts that can be seen just hiding under the inlet manifold runner to cylinder 1 under my blue trim tool, you need to lift up (or remove) the inlet manifold to allow access to this bolt. The easiest bolt in the entire job is the top oil filter housing to cylinder head bolt which can be seen ‘below’ the oil pressure sensor at the 8 o’clock position relative to the oil filter cover.

The yellow line shows the location of the cylinder head to oil filter housing gasket and the red line is the location of the oil filter housing to oil cooler gasket.

New oil cooler to oil filter housing bolts, note the ball end, which necessities as deep E12 Torx socket to re-fit.

New oil filter housing to cylinder bolts, three of differing length, short one goes in upside down under the cooler, middle sized goes in under the inlet manifold and the long one is the easiest of the lot!

New oil filter housing to cylinder head gasket

New oil cooler to oil filter housing gasket.

To start remove the decorative/engine acoustic panel

Unclip the coolant hose from the support bracket on the front of the decorative cover, one half of the front part unclips from the main part and then lift of the cover, it has little rubber grommets that sit in the MAF duct, which may stay on the duct or come out with the cover, but make sure you don’t loose them.

Next up is to remove the airbox as it sits above the inlet manifold

6mm socket to undo the MAF duct to the airbox lid.

Unclip the inlet duct to the air box, it takes a bit of force to disconnect in towards the front of the car.

Unclip the three wiring ducts that lead down to the DME from the airbox

The air box sits on three rubber bobbins that are a push fit over plastic studs on the inlet manifold. One is just behind the oil filter cover and the other two are towards the rear, just behind the main throttle valve and cylinder 4 duct.

This is the one next to the main throttle valve, a sharp tug upwards is enough to pull off the air box. I cover the exposed end of the MAF duct with a orange mechanics glove to protect the inlet and being orange, you can’t miss it on re-assembly!

Now for the MAF duct

Press the tab on the MAF sensor wiring plug and pull out the plug

7mm socket to undo the MAF duct to the main air duct

The offside lid of the cable duct at the rear of the engine, the lid hinges at this side, unclip from nearside and lift away…

…to expose the three main wiring ducts that go from the sealed fuse box above the brake master cylinder to the DME.

A T25 screwdriver is needed to undo two screws that hold the cable duct to the inlet manifold.

There is a cable connector that is mounted to the cable tray inlet manifold bracket, slide the cable to the offside and it comes away from the bracket

The two T25 screws on the offside of the cable tray are a bit more awkward to get to needing a T25 bit and universal joint on a ¼” extension.

Lift away the cable tray, noting the balljoint which hooks under the insulation piece. Adjacent to my ring finger is the clips that the cable clips too in picture above.

Moving all the wiring and cable trays etc allows you to gain access to the rearmost inlet manifold nut, just visible in this picture

To allow the inlet manifold to move easily, I unplug a number of the wiring looms just to give it space to move

Unplug the inlet manifold pressure sensor plug.

To gain access to the front two inlet manifold bolts (front two are bolts the rear five are nuts over studs) you need to move some vacuum lines.

Unclip the front vacuum line from its bracket so you can access the front inlet manifold bolt.

Press the two serrated parts of the other end of the above vacuum line inwards and pull up to remove it from the ducting that feeds the turbo.

Do exactly the same with the vacuum line that supplies the vacuum reservoir that is inbuilt into the cylinder head

Be gentle as these plastic vacuum lines are brittle and whilst they don’t need to come off at both ends, slack is needed just to allow you to pull up on the inlet manifold to get to that one bolt.

Unclip the two wiring ducts that run along the top of the inlet manifold fixings, these will sit up on top of the cylinder head to allow you to get access to the inlet manifold fixings.

Now for the inlet manifold fixings. As said before, the front two fixings are bolts and the rear 5No are bolts, the last one being the most challenging to get to!

Using an 11mm socket (yes I think it’s the first time I’ve ever used an 11mm socket) on the end of an extension and undo the nut.

Don’t drop the nut!

The second bolt is slightly tricky to get to as the vacuum line is partially blocking access, but because you removed its other end from the vacuum reservoir on the cylinder head there is enough space to squeeze in your ¼” drive 11mm socket to….

…undo and remove the bolt.

Thankfully the remainder of the inlet manifold fixings are much easier to access, I used a magnetic wand to fish out the nuts. I undid these in a progressive manner but as the bolts aren’t very tight and the manifold is of stiff construction, it would be unlikely to warp.

All the manifold fixings laid out before being stored safely with everything else that has been removed.

Unplug the three wiring looms from the DME, these are the same ones as in the cable tray above the engine you removed earlier. To undo these, press down on the small clip at the top then fold over the retaining clip, this should pop out the plug from the air cooled DME, again this is to give more slack in moving the inlet manifold.  The three other plugs are the ones I failed to remove, you don’t need to remove these as there is enough wiggle room.

To get the inlet manifold to move you have to move the inlet duct from upstream side of the throttle valve, to get that to move, undo the Torx T30 bolt that secures the duct to a securing bracket.

Remove the screw, the clip nut is retained on the inlet ducting

Pull up the inlet duct securing clip using a hook tool.

Brute strength needed to pull off the inlet duct from the throttle body.

Ignore the disconnected Evap electrical connector and its vacuum line, there was enough slack to move the manifold so I stuck them back together.

Using a pair of ratcheting hose clip pliers, squeeze the bypass hose clip at the thermostat and gently pull the hose off the plastic thermostat. Have your coolant catch pan ready.

Let the coolant system drain.

This is the other end of the bypass hose, or mickey mouse hose so called due to the shape of the plastic fitting that bolts to the cylinder head.  This is another cooling system weak point, hence why I’m replacing this hose in its entirety with new plastic flange, O-ring and bolts. You need to remove this hose from the head to allow access to that bottom oil filter housing to cylinder head bolt (torx head) to right of hose flange bolts.

Retrieve the M6 bolts, 10mm socket.

Remove the bypass hose from the engine bay, this bypasses the radiator.

Using a 6mm socket undo the hose clamp on the oil cooler return coolant hose. Gently push a pick tool between the inner bore of the hose and the oil cooler outlet to break the seal between the two and pull off the hose.

The hoses are now disconnected bar the main top radiator hose. I had left the auxiliary belt in place till this step. For more details see link to an earlier post above.

Because I’m like that, I had kept the supplied locking pin for the aux belt tensioner, the tension was taken off the belt with a T60 Torx bit and the locking pic (4.5mm drill will do) inserted to slip the belts off the pulleys and safely stored away from any oil contamination. Which is the whole point of this exercise!  See post linked too above for more details on auxiliary belt.

About sodding time, that’s everything completed just to access the necessary bolts and to gain access to do the actual job of changing the two gaskets. Loosen the lowest oil cooler to oil filter housing bolt using a deep E12 socket.

The lower bolt head covered in oil that has come from the gasket above.

After removing the three bolts, the oil cooler should just pull away from the oil filter housing. Have a rag handy to catch any oil and coolant dribbles, oil will come out, hence why you remove the belt first!

Next up, the oil filter housing.  Oil filter and cap are still untouched at present.

Unplug the oil pressure sensor wiring.

Push out one more wiring loom clip from the corner of the inlet manifold above the alternator…

….this is to help access “that bolt” just beneath my dirty finger nail.

Loosen to lowest bolt on the cylinder head to oil filter housing, you can see why you needed the mickey mouse house out the way. A small E10 socket is needed.

Before completely removing all three bolts, pull out the retaining clip on the main radiator hose…

….and pull off the hose. I was going to replace it too, but I think the old one will need cutting off to make it easy to remove without damaging another plastic part of the cooling system. I wisely decode to do that job another day.

Pull the inlet manifold up on its studs and get an E10 socket and extension on “that bolt” and loosen it. All that work on the manifold to get to this one bolt….. Proving the point once again that a car mechanic did indeed sleep with a car designers wife.

Leave the easy one (the longest one) till last.

That’s it, it’s as much dismantling I am prepared to do today, I clean up the gasket faces with nothing more than a rag and brake cleaner.  I give the whole area that was ‘sweated’ upon a clean with rags, a toothbrush, brake cleaner and engine degreaser. There are coolant and oil dribbles down the front of the engine and onto the roll bar and hoses lower down.

I remove the old oil filter, well I say old. I fitted it on 25^th September at 61,138, its only done 155 miles in 20 days. Oh well. I buy them in bulk from Amazon for £6 each so can’t really complain.

I scrub clean the oil filter hosing with a toothbrush and brake cleaner. I first removed the old gaskets with a pick tool. They felt brittle and no where near as supple as the replacements.

This is the face that bolts to the cylinder head, nice and clean and ready for it’s new gaskets

It’s an impressive bit of casting.

Now this is another important point to note. The oil filter housing is clearly empty of oil.  When you change the oil filter, there is a puddle of oil left in the bottom of this filter housing, which I think (in my most humble of opinions) creates a form of seal like a U bend in a toilet preventing oil draining back into the sump. Now I don’t have that puddle of oil anymore thus on start up the filter will be devoid of oil and thus there will be an interruption in oil flow to the main bearings and valve train. This is not good.  To solve this we have to prime the engine to ensure oil is back here at the filter so it can get to the important parts.  More on this later.

New cylinder head to oil filter housing gasket carefully placed in the channels.

It’s a lot cleaner now that it was 20 minutes earlier.  I’ll fit the oil cooler gasket later once I’ve cleaned up the cooler.

Oil cooler showing clear signs of an oil sweat from the oil cooler to oil filter housing gasket. I use an old oven tray to clean it up with a toothbrush and brake cleaner.

Made by Modine, new name to me.

Considerably cleaner, I ran brake cleaner thru the oil lines but it all looked clean on the inside and no oil observed in the coolant side of things which is a good sign.

New oil filer and lubricated OLD seals clicked into the cleaned up oil filter cap. Don’t worry, I will replace the seals later after I have primed the engine oil system

Now to refit the new oil filter housing to cylinder head bolts, they are all tightened progressively to 22Nm, this is the medium length bolt being tightened, the long bolt goes at the top and short one, inserted upside down at the front. You can’t go wrong. Refit the top radiator hose. Make sure the retaining clip, clips into place.

Refit the inlet manifold, push it back down it’s studs, re-insert the two bolts at the front and rear 5 No nuts, again torque down in a progressive manner to 15Nm. Refit all the wiring you have disconnected and the air inlet system.

Install the new oil cooler gasket….

…and the cleaned oil cooler with its new bolts. You will need a deep E12 socket. Torque these to 16Nm. Refit the oil cooler return coolant hose, if you really want to know, torque this to 3Nm.

Refit the new bypass hose making sure the new O-ring is present. The new bolts are torqued to 8.5Nm.

Push the other end of the hose onto the plastic thermostat pipe spigot, carefully! Fit the hose clip with your hose clip pliers. Make sure you fit the hose clip over the hose before pushing the hose onto the thermostat.  There are ‘stops’ on the thermostat so you will know when the hose is pushed far enough home. Last job for the night is to re-fit the auxiliary belt.

I stop here for the day, the important stuff is back together. List for tomorrow includes, coolant flush and re-fill, oil priming, air inlet system, fan and upper brace refitting.

Next day I flush out the cooling system. I remove the lowest easily accessible radiator hose by pulling up on the wire clip then pulling it off the radiator stub.  Took a bit of effort. Once the system is drained of coolant I flush the system with a garden hose in the expansion tank and leave it running for a few minutes.

As I’m not completely draining the system as I’ve not removed the lowest hose in the system it is therefore partially filled with clean water. Remember that point. I refit the radiator hose and prepare to fill the cooling system.

I hook up my vacuum filling tool and pull a vacuum in the cooling system.

This collapses the hoses in an alarming way…

…but this means it self sucks in the coolant straight out the bottle without spilling a drop. The cooling system is 9.3 litres in capacity and is filled on a 50/50 ration coolant/water. I had removed 300ml from the 5 litre bottle. Remember the system will have water in it from the flush.

Once the vacuum has been fully restored, pour in the rest of the coolant into the expansion tank, you then need to bleed the cooling system using the electric water pump. If your diagnostic machine cannot operate the electric water pump, you can manually operate it

Get in the car, shut the doors, switch on the ignition, switch on the heater and fan, full heat and blower at lowest speed, press the throttle to the floor and hold it there for 10 seconds.

You should now hear the pump operate and see a jet of coolant in the expansion tank.

More details here

Top up the coolant tank with water if required as I've got 50% of the systems volume filled with new coolant.

I now refit the remaining components I removed, the fan, upper front brace and underbelly. 

So that’s one vital fluid level sorted, now for the oil….remember the oil filter housing is bone dry, so I prime the oil system. To do this, you need to turn the engine over on the starter to spin up the oil pump but without the engine firing and thus putting load on big end bearings that may not have oil delivered to them initially. You need to switch off the injectors to prevent the engine from starting. It’s no use just switching off the ignition coils as you certainly don’t ant fuel from the injectors washing any oil from the cylinder bores especially when there may be a delay in oil getting to the critical bits. To switch off the injectors, you could unplug the relevant plug from the DME, but I struggled to unplug all of these.

Thus the easiest way is to simply kill the power to the DME by unplugging the engine fuse box power supply.  If the DME has no power it can’t instruct the coils to spark or the injectors to put fuel into the engine.

Which of course immediately causes the car to have a hissy fit as it knows something is really not right! This will log numerous fault codes given what you are going to do next.  But critically there is still power going to the starter motor.

With the ignition on and your foot on the brake, press the starter button.  Let the engine crank over for 10 seconds. You might find the starter will stop of it’s own accord after 8 seconds or so.

Wait at least 30 seconds before repeating the cranking process for 10 seconds.

Repeat this once more so you have cranked the engine over three times for ten seconds each time.

Hence why you need to have a fully charged battery as you have put a lot of strain on it with cranking the engine without firing it and having operated the electric water pump.

To confirm that the oil priming procedure has worked for sure is to crack open the oil filter cap, sure enough oil dribbled out. I then replaced the oil filter cap seals and torqued the filter housing down to 25Nm. 

I have oil circulating, phew. I wipe up the dribbles from my nice new clean and oil free engine!

Clear the fault codes from the DME as there will be plenty due to the engine turning over with effectively a dead DME.

Start the engine and let it idle for several minutes so that you can then check the oil level just as you would do having completed an oil change.

Oil level was OK but not full anymore.

I measure out 250ml of the same oil that went in just a few weeks earlier and add that to the sump contents.

Which brings the level back to where I like it to be.

Refit the decorative engine cover and take for a test drive with the heater fully open to allow the coolant to fully circulate. I heard some very faint gurgling from the heater matrix which indicates there might still be a little bit of air in the system. Heater was fine for temperature.

 

Once I get back after a short test drive, I slowly unscrew the expansion tank cap and top up the level with a few hundred ml of water and then fire up the electric water pump to allow any air to escape.

Before going on subsequent drives I check the coolant level and thankfully each time it’s still sitting at the max mark where I topped it up to and I’ve no gurgles from the heater.

Work carried out at 61,293 miles and at 10.75 years old.

I've now run the car for a further fortnight since doing the work and each time before leaving home I've checked the coolant level. I haven't added any more.

Heater is hot.

Oil is staying in the engine.

No knocks from the bottom end.

All good.

Hopefully this may help someone with something other than insomnia.

[Steve84N]

Nice write up. 

I only dislodged the air intake and didn't change the six seals either. Yours looks nothing like as bad as mine was leaking. The first time I did it I used Viton seals from ebay thinking they'd be more durable, but they didn't seal properly. I had to do the whole thing again so used genuine BMW seals. Hopefully your elring ones will do the job. 

I'd recommend changing the auxiliary belt whilst you're at it, they're cheap and the old one is probably contaminated. 

Also, do yourself a favour and fit a crank seal guard. That way if the belt slips off (could also do so if another component seizes for example) then it cannot get ingested and destroy the engine. 

I used this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165285588530?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Ejy9RkPiSUC&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=yzapL6MWRMu&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Edited October 31, 2023 by Steve84N

[Andrew]

Yes, mine wasn't really too bad, I've seen much worse.  The aux belt I replaced back in 2021 along with the pulleys and the old was didn't have oil on it, nor did this one, I double checked it. I was really doing this job as preventative maintenance, rather than fixing noticeable oil leak, which I was referring it to as a sweat.

I've looked at that belt guard, think you've shared that before, thanks. I might fit one if I do the front main seal but its dry and you need a right phaff of a tool for that. Don't like the idea of undoing two of the bedplate bolts to fit it, in case the compression on the main seal or the bed plate seal relaxes and it starts leaking, but it would be miniscule given the stiffness of the bed plate but.  I'm still deciding on that one.

[Steve84N]

I should have known you'd have considered it all... 

[Andrew]

I've done 1,000 miles since this job, no oil leaks from the area and the coolant level is still spot on when checked today.

More importantly no knocks from the bottom end. The oil priming obviously worked.

[cube]

Hi Andrew. 

I've found out the hard way re priming the oil system, my N55 just had the oil filter housing gasket done but now has a knocking bottom end and metal in the oil.

Just curious how you knew about the need to prime the oil system as not everyone does, especially in the UK from what I can tell?

[Andrew]

51 minutes ago, cube said:

Just curious how you knew about the need to prime the oil system as not everyone does, especially in the UK from what I can tell?

By doing an extensive Google on it.  There was too many coincidences of bottom end failure within a few hundred miles of this job being done so didn't want to take the risk, particularly in America where the engine is much more common.

But as the others will testify on here, I'm a perfectionist DIYer (automotive OCD sufferer and a big fearty) so I'm quite happy to go the extra mile and do a few extra steps to make sure oil was back up where it should be.  I had the time, inclination and spare oil filter and oil to pop back in, plus I'd extensively worked out how to crank the engine over without it starting.

From the reading I did and the technical folks I spoke too reckoned you shouldn't need to do it as its not really that much different from doing an oil change or a first start after a long time idle and you would be really really unlucky for any damage to be done on the initial turn of the key.

[cube]

Thanks.  Yes, the place that did mine were dismissive of lack of priming being the reason my engine is ruined.  But the low mileage on mine and the way it's turned out is so similar to the others I've read about, I'm convinced that not priming is the reason.

 I came across someone in America on Facebook talking about the importance of priming the N55 oil system.  He had gone to the trouble of checking in the oil filter housing while cranking an engine after an OFHG change and in one case on an N55 he said it was a whole minute in total on the starter motor before there was oil in the housing.   That has to be long enough oil starvation to cause damage to bottom end bearings if the car is started without priming.

I'm finding it hard to find definitive info in the UK.  E.g. these service information bulletins SIB 11 09 15 and SIB 11 02 20 both specify, the latter even reference specific engines including the N55, that priming the oil system has to be done after work on the oil filter housing.  But what isn't clear to me is how these are included in say the BMW repair instructions, and especially in the UK.  If there is anyone here who knows that side of it, I'd be interested to know.

Edited January 26 by cube

[Andrew]

14 minutes ago, cube said:

he said it was a whole minute in total on the starter motor before there was oil in the housing.   That has to be long enough oil starvation to cause damage to bottom end bearings if the car is started without priming.

 

I had read to do three 10 second bursts on the starter 30 seconds apart. So mine had 30 seconds on the starter.

But if the engine is being spun by the starter the only load on the main bearings is the inertia load from the self weight of the con rod and piston and not the full force of petrol being exploded.

[cube]

Oh yeah completely agree re much easier on the bearings on the starter.  On post I read suggested removing the spark plugs as well to allow the starter to spin the engine faster/ more easily.  If I was doing it myself, I think I would do that.

My main problem is the cost, although mine is low mileage (77.5k/ 2nd owner/ bought it 9 years ago), it's a 2011 car and the cost of a new engine is the same as the value of the car.   So it feels like having to buy my own car, or sell it for little and buy something else/ inherit someone else's problems.

[duncan-uk]

I think values are better than you think. Tourings seem to be 14-18k range not sure on saloons. 
 

it’s a crap situation obviously but if rest of car is good I’d be tempted to look at a used engine as a broken car is worth very little however good it is. 

[Steve84N]

@cubeit was me who replied to your post on Pistonheads. Here are some videos on the topic of OFHG gasket replacement. It mentions that the TSB is not specific to the N55 but that it came about because of problems with the N55 following work that interfered with the oiling system.

 

The thinking seems to be that it's different to an oil change because it can introduce air locks and the oil pressure is low at idle due to a variable valve that's used to save fuel.

This video shows rod bearings being changed on a 160k mile engine and they are barely worn. 

 

This video believes the problem that broke the engine was oil starvation. 

My engine didn't die as fast as yours but I did have the OFHG off twice before it failed, neither with priming the engine. It all points to the need to do so. 

Here's my engine thread. 

https://www.forum5.co.uk/topic/1801-f11-535i-engine-failure/

[Andrew]

I know that @Caesar has his gaskets done but his engine is still good. 

[cube]

5 hours ago, duncan-uk said:

I think values are better than you think. Routings seem to be 14-18k range not sure on saloons. 
 

it’s a crap situation obviously but if rest of car is good I’d be tempted to look at a used engine as a broken car is worth very little however good it is. 

Thanks @duncan-uk mine is convertible (no judging / comments please, ha) just looking on Autotrader seem to be around £11-12k, similar to the engine change plus turbo recon.  I saw in @Steve84N's thread that you have an E39.   I had one of those from 33k-125k miles.  Was good but let us down on trip to the alps, had to go unfortunately and replaced by a F11 530d.  This experience with the N55 has naturally added to the massive paranoia about all the stuff with the N57 engine in the 530d!

[cube]

4 hours ago, Steve84N said:

@cubeit was me who replied to your post on Pistonheads. Here are some videos on the topic of OFHG gasket replacement. It mentions that the TSB is not specific to the N55 but that it came about because of problems with the N55 following work that interfered with the oiling system.

My engine didn't die as fast as yours but I did have the OFHG off twice before it failed, neither with priming the engine. It all points to the need to do so. 

Here's my engine thread. 

https://www.forum5.co.uk/topic/1801-f11-535i-engine-failure/

Ha, thanks @Steve84N I had come across your thread earlier today and realised it must be you.  I feel like I've now read every single  thread and article out there on the oil filter housing gasket/ engine failure issue on the N55.  Must be so many wasted hours/ so much wasted money by everyone on this.  I added up the costs of all the work/ parts that had been done on mine just before this episode with investigation into water leak and oil leak, water pump, OFHG, rear discs and pads, a brake caliper, it's £2,000.  Def feel my affection with BMW is waning.  They're great when new / under warranty / working normally but otherwise seem like a massive liability.

[duncan-uk]

21 minutes ago, cube said:

Thanks @duncan-uk mine is convertible (no judging / comments please, ha) just looking on Autotrader seem to be around £11-12k, similar to the engine change plus turbo recon.  I saw in @Steve84N's thread that you have an E39.   I had one of those from 33k-125k miles.  Was good but let us down on trip to the alps, had to go unfortunately and replaced by a F11 530d.  This experience with the N55 has naturally added to the massive paranoia about all the stuff with the N57 engine in the 530d!

Aah so yours is a three not a five?

[cube]

20 minutes ago, duncan-uk said:

Aah so yours is a three not a five?

Yes, a 2011 335i convertible.  I've read the early N55 had a different oil pump, revised in later versions

[Steve84N]

@cubeone of the reasons I went ahead with the new engine was because of how deep I already was into the car doing other stuff. I'd have made a bigger loss starting again with something else. 

[Andrew]

59 minutes ago, duncan-uk said:

Aah so yours is a three not a five?

Do you ever read posts properly? 🤦🏻‍♂️

1 hour ago, cube said:

Thanks @duncan-uk mine is convertible (no judging / comments please, ha)  

Too late, judged already 🤣 although you’ll be Duncan’s pal as he likes to pretend he’s a hair dresser to in his E46 vert. 

[duncan-uk]

Always a tricky call - my 530d has one last chance else it will be broken which is a shame but you have to take the loss sometimes.

[duncan-uk]

4 minutes ago, Andrew said:

Do you ever read posts properly? 🤦🏻‍♂️

Too late, judged already 🤣 although you’ll be Duncan’s pal as he likes to pretend he’s a hair dresser to in his E46 vert. 

I read the posts it says N55 - as you know on a phone you don't get the garage bit to the side where yours says "triggers broom" and Cubes says 335i.

I've also read your post and I note that it should read "too" and not "to" if we are being pedantic 😂

[Andrew]

He mentioned it in his post that it was a three….

I do apologise @cube for my fellow admin’s ignorance….

I do try with him but….

[duncan-uk]

I'm going to have to ask for proof Andrew 🤪

[cube]

36 minutes ago, duncan-uk said:

Always a tricky call - my 530d has one last chance else it will be broken which is a shame but you have to take the loss sometimes.

The E39s will/ must live forever.  But then again more reliability nightmare, mine had a turbo at 55k and I think the place that I used put in a 2nd hand turbo because it failed again at 75k and I got no paperwork.  And while we're on that, I used Turbo Technics at Northampton for the 2nd turbo.  Good on 2 counts - 1) They have their own workshop so the whole job was done by them (removal/ recon/ refit) which is much better for warranty and 2) They were nice to deal with and have great credentials.  Turbo was still ok 50k miles later.

My E39 had one last chance but blew it on the way back from a ski trip to the alps and had to be left in France/ recovered later.   It added insult to injury (literally) as I had a broken collarbone from said ski trip. Ha. Still think it was more comfortable than the F11.  And the suspension airbags lasted MUCH longer.  But we digress.....

[duncan-uk]

I agree. I prefer the e39 to the f11 and mines been very reliable over all. Now on 193k but the brakes are fighting me and I’m running out of patience.