Well today was a bad day. Driving home about 2 miles left to my house, I noticed a in my rear view mirror a big smoke trail. When I got home, opened the bonnet my mini looked like it was engulfed in smoke. After the smoke stopped. It made quite a bit of a mess. Oil went almost everywhere, especially the underside of my Mini, total mess ( just cleaned and detailed it yesterday. My engine bay was spotless).

Just ordered a stainless oil feed line from Detroit Tuned.
Depressed that my Mini would be out of commission for a couple of days.

I was curious how long it takes to replace the oil feed line to the turbo and if the stainless one from Detroit Tuned is better than the O.E. one from MINI.

 

There is an open file on the NHTSA web site for the turbo oil line leak. I suggest that you register a formal complaint so that maybe someday NHTSA will force MINI to correct this possible fire hazard.

 

It took me 9 hours to replace my line, but I'm no mechanic. The Detroit Tuned line should be better as it does not use the rubber o-rings that fail in the OE part.

I'm still monitoring mine to see if I really stopped the leak. I've had a few drips since I did the work. Not sure if it is just some residual oil from my cleaning attempts, something I didn't do right on the repair, or if there is something else leaking.

 

Is the feed line behind the lower heat shield? If it is, is there enough room to maneuver and remove the banjo bolt or do I need to put the Mini in service mode? Thanks for you help.

I've taken my car apart so many times so I figured I could do it in less than 3 hours.

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Yes, you have to remove the lower heat shield. Space was tight, but I did not put it in service mode Once you have the lower heat shield out, there is plenty of room to access the banjo bolt (though my contortions to get the new one in were a pain due to working off the garage floor).

See post 18 in this thread:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...s-leaking.html

Those are the instructions I followed (alas, my birthday gift of a Bentley manual arrived on Tuesday, too late for this repair). If you've been doing lots of work on your MINI, probably nothing new to you there.

I replaced my oil return line while I had everything torn apart and replaced both the gasket between the downpipe and turbo and the clamp connecting the downpipe to the rest of the exhaust.

 

Thank you for the info. I know how to get I done. Now the hard part is waiting or the part.
I miss driving my Mini. Driving my van around is no fun. It's seriously like a tank compared to my Mini. (BTW my van is a Mercedes Sprinter van with a 170" wheelbase and a High roof.)

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Just pulled out the turbo oil line. A lot easier than thought. I took me roughly a hour to pull the feed line out. Parts are coming tomorrow. Yay!

Look how loose the feed lines are. Notice the red mark I made. Both sides of the feed line are like this.

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Impressive. Took me 2 hours just to get to the point where I had the downpipe out. Goes to show how much more efficient someone is when they know what they are doing.

I still have a leak, but can't tell whether it is my new line or something else.

 

I found out that if you unbolt all 4 of the bolts to the bottom downpipe and one bolt from the bottom heatshield it makes taking out the downpipe a lot easier. The first time I tried to pull out downpipe it took close to 3-4 hours since I didn't know where everything is.

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Did you get this one, http://www.detroittuned.com/shop/?productID=581 ? If so, let me know how the install goes and how it works out. I am about to order one myself because I am going to be doing my turbo here very soon. Write-up if you can thanks.

 

Yes that is the one I got from Detroit Tuned. I think it will come in tomorrow. I'm also going to replace the turbo oil return line too. Also from Detroit Tuned. http://www.detroittuned.com/shop/ind...?productID=568

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Just got the parts at work. Can't wait to get home and put it in.
My order came with some nice Detroit Tuned decals and a beer can opener. Cool.

The new feed line came with some odd crush washers. (Look at bottom picture.) I wonder if they would hold better than the copper ones.

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Should be fine. Get them installed. Also show us a how-to.

 

I'm no good with how to. There's not much to it after to it after taking out the downpipe and heatshield. I'll try taking some pictures but its hard using a creeper and rhino ramps.

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Fine, I will just do one when I do mine in a couple of weeks.

 

I got finally pulled off the oil return line. What a pain. A solid 10 minutes of trying to pull it off. I'm glad I did, the O-ring kind of fell apart when I pulled it out. The new return line seems to be a bit thicker compared to one that i pulled out. (See pictures below)

Next putting in the new feed and return lines in.
Lets see how long this takes me.

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Well that was easy. Correct me if I'm wrong. The torque on the banjo bolts is 22 ft/lbs.

I'm going to try starting the car running with a Catless downpipe without the heatshield to check if there any leaks.

Porthos I can try taking some pictures after I clean up the engine bay up. Maybe it might help doing a how to. That oil it spewed made a huge mess. (On the hood, downpipe, exhaust, and the whole boot is covered in oil. Found out it lost about 2 quarts of oil.)

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When I got my feed line from Detroit Tuned (the same braided version they are producing, not the OEM) it came with brass crush washers. That was only a couple weeks ago. And yes, 22 ft/lbs.

My experience with the return line was similar - quite the pain to get it to pull off. Once off, it definitely looks like the O-ring had experienced quite a bit of degradation. Based on the oil patterns, I'm not sure what wasn't contributing to the (a) oil leak.

Wish I had thought of doing something to leave things a little easier to access to check for leaks since I still have one. I think I may have to get some dye to see if I can figure out where it is coming from.

Porthos, the link I provided earlier does a pretty good job of explaining all the bolts that have to be removed to get access to the line.

 

Is there any instruction on how to do it yourself?

MINI SA dealer told me this is a 5 hour job.

 

See my reply earlier in this thread with a link to a write-up on removal. Detroit Tuned provides install instructions on the product page for their braided line kit.

 

So it might be a good idea to drain the oil before starting this install? Did you lose any coolant also? I am going to be taking my turbo off so I am just trying to be prepared for it.

 

Mine didn't drip a bit of oil, okay maybe 2 or 3 drips when replacing the feed or return lines. Coolant?

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Hey NY R56, how many miles do you have on your 09? Did the oil line fail on the top or lower bolt? I too have an 09 with 45k miles and am wondering if I should replace it before the so-called "Big Smoke Trail" Thanks.

 

Mines is actually a 2007. The mileage is 56,935 when it happened. My Mini hasn't moved since then. It has been a little bit over a week now. The turbo line is fixed, added the MINI oil line heatshield just in case, and changed the oil. Took me 2 days trying to clean the mess it made. I don't think I finished cleaning all the oil off my Mini yet.

As for the bolts that failed, both. Top one caused a huge leak, the bottom one was pretty loose as well. The O-Ring on my return line degraded to the point it fell apart when I pull it off.

I would recommend to replace the line when you start to see any oil coming from your feed lines.

As for the big smoke trail, it was a sight to see. The oil leaked all over the downpipe. (Prolly where all the smoke came from) There was a good amount of oil loss when I tried to limp it home.(loss about 2 Quarts of oil within 2 miles)

I won't have my Mini running until sometime next week. I'm will doing my own walnut blasting when the vacuum attachment comes in. My intake valves are coated in carbon bad, and I mean its pretty bad. I seafoam and change my oil every 7000 miles too. Check the photo how bad it looks.

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