So, dealer did the thermo housing under warranty a few thousand miles ago. All well. Now, a small blue puddle sits under the car, at 52k miles. No coolant on the xmission top. I proceed to swap out the water pump, which I do 6 hours later. The old pump turned out was not the leaker!@@#$.
The coolant appears pretty much center of the engine, the oil pan lip and even the exhaust pipe have some drippage on them. I ordered the Bentley manual, but it's not in yet. My question: what is dealing with coolant front/center of the motor? Is this where the electrical water pump is?

 

The oil filter housing has coolant running through it. If your car is an S, then there is also an oil cooler bolted to the oil filter housing. Both of these parts are sealed to the engine block with an elastomer gasket. The gaskets fail over time.
It is a pretty big job, you need to remove the heat shields and downpipe to get to the area. While you are in there, it is advisable to replace the turbo oil feed and drain lines.
I did a write up in the 'how to' section on this. If you are pretty good with tools, and are patient, this is a 4-5 hour job. The worst part of the job is to remove the heat shields.

Have fun,
Mike

 

wicz; Thanks for that, and a very nice write up on the process as well. I'm left with the nagging feeling that the seal design is poor. This is a static seal, not exposed to particularly high temperatures. Should last much longer than it seems to be. Could it be the oil filter/cooler is warping? Did you happen to test for mating surface flatness? Did I understand your write-up in saying the only item replaced is the actual seal?

Even though I had the dealer replace the turbo oil line under warranty, I will also do the DT oil line aftermarket swap. It's absolutely ridiculous to expect THAT o ring to survive in that hi-temperature environment, with the expansion/contraction of that fitting.

 

I agree with it being the oil cooler. Positive note, hopefully you went with the newer water pump and you have a new thermostat. Thats a plus. I have an oil cooler off my old motor that i dont know if it would be any good for you if you wanted something to compare.

 

My surfaces were flat, but I could actually see the leaking portion of the seal. It broke when I pulled it out of the oil filter housing. The gasket between the oil cooler and filter housing looked fine, but I replaced it at the same time.
The seal material gets hard after hundreds of heat/cool cycles and loses its ability to seal properly. I was very confident that I found the leak, and I have not seen any sign of leaking after replacement.

Have fun,
Mike

 

i just did the same thing, except i was leaking oil not coolant. for what its worth, at first i couldn't get the down pipe out without going into "service" mode. halfway through getting to service mode i said **** it and just pulled the whole front clip off. if you pull the clip you can easily do the seals without pulling the exhaust apart.

or you can remove the lower brackets that mount the down pipe to the engine block, and then you CAN pull the down pipe without going into service mode. i still think it was easier to just pull the whole clip off, made it much easier to clean up the mess that had been made.

i had a bunch of maintenance planned around this though, and did the turbo oil drain hose, exhaust gaskets and new fasteners for the down pipe flange at the same time while i was in there.

 

Great info, my plan exactly. I have a FTIR at work. I'm going to see for sure what these seals are composed of. My job is to design industrial equip. to last 25 years in the field, exposed to hot oil, btw..

 

In your post, you had mentioned about the write up, can you post that to the forum? I think my MINI has the exact same issue.

thx.

 

Don't forget about the plastic pipe that connects the thermostat housing to the water pump.

 

The good MBWICZ writeup, link below. I did put the car in service mode first, however. I also recommend clipping off the fender clips from the inside fender wells using wire cutters. Many will be destroyed anyway, and you don't want to trash the plastic fender lips.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...placement.html