Changed my oil last night and had some real struggle getting the filter cap with new filter to seat properly. I thought I got it threaded correctly, but when I started the car the oil light remained on and the engine was rattling like crazy. I quickly shut if off and sure enough, oil was all over the ground.

I took the housing cap back off and noticed that there is a jagged piece of threading. Could this be not allowing a good seal? Wondering if I need to replace my Oil Filter Housing...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


You can see at the 7 o'clock position there is a jagged piece of thread.

 

I certainly could prevent a good seal for the oring. Maybe the cap was crossthreaded at some point- easy enough to do- and some metal ended up just where the seal has to be made. I think if you just check to make sure there's no other loose metal, thread the cap again making sure it goes in properly to seat, and check for leaks again you should be ok. As long as the threads are good to hold the oring against the sealing surface all should be well. If it still leaks then you could consider a replacement.

 

It's possible that the housing is fine, but the "engine rattling like crazy" has me rather concerned for your rod bearings. I would suggest getting a new filter and trying to reassemble everything correctly. If it all goes together flush / as it should, I would attempt to re-fill the car and start it again. Bottom end noise being the primary thing to listen for. If you do need a new oil filter housing, I have one for sale that I'll beat ebay / wherever pricing on. I don't need it. Check to see that yours is good first, though. There's also a check return valve in there to inspect. They fail and cause low pressure, but not hemorrhaging like you said you experienced.

 

The o-ring sits well above the threads on the cap so it doesn’t look like they could cause a leak, unless there is matching damage on the cap threads that the o-ring catches when being installed into the groove in the cap.

What would be a concern is what happened to the missing metal of the threads... did they get filtered out harmlessly, or did they run through the engine for a while?