I’m in the midst of refurbishing an 80,000 mile 2004 Cooper S which a friend gave me. It needs a new clutch and so I’ve pulled the subframe and axles. There has been a lot of oil leakage, especially around the oil filter housing/oil cooler area. That’s much easier to see with the subframe and axles out of the way.

Drained the coolant, engine oil and trans fluid. No signs of contamination although the coolant was brown.

Pleaee look at the attached photo of the cylinder head area. There is no sign of heavy oil leaking, but seems to be some seepage or discoloration. I’d really like to wrap up this work without replacing the head gasket. What do you think?

The more I look at the photos, the more I think there’s nothing wrong.

 

It's more likely that oil is migrating from a leak somewhere else than for the head gasket to be leaking oil. In fact, in your first picture, there is a trail oil coming from above the head gasket. I would follow that trail. Leaking valve cover gaskets are very common on our engines.

 

Thanks!
Yes, I’m certain there are other leaks and I’m replacing all of the gaskets except the head gasket. I already did the valve cover gasket so it looks clean but the oil filter housing is a massive mess.

 

Hey there having just replace many gaskets and o-rings as a need to do and preventative maintenance. As you mentioned I would be paying particular attention to the oil filter housing gasket and the heater exchanger. It is not ta difficult a job just fiddly, replacing the heater exchanger and the two gaskets that fit up against the oil filter housing appears to have solved my coolant colour which has stayed blue at present.

 

Yup, I pulled that thing out yesterday and began cleaning it up. I have an OFHG but I need to order the oil cooler o-rings, but I’ll get some.

 

I would 100% replace the oil cooler with a new one whilst you have apart.

 

why replace? Isn’t cleaning and new gaskets good enough?

 

When I did mine I wanted the best possible surface when mating up to the oil filter housing. My cooler was the original with 98,000 klm new cooler appears to have sorted out the issue of brown coolant at the moment. If it is the original cooler on your mini its bound to fail in the near future, I figured it was so fiddly a job I wanted to give it the best chance from leaking again.

Just a tip on reinstall of the cooler I purchased a cheap 12" inch magnetic Torx T30 screw driver to reattach the 4 screws this made life much easier to hold the unit still and slowly seat the 4 Torx screws.

 

Thank you. My cooler was clogged with brown goop. I soaked it in solvent which broke it up and now I can flush water through and it comes out clear. I did buy new gaskets, a new thermostat, thermostat housing, and a new water pump. And I replaced the radiator fan resistor.

 

I read somewhere more so about when the cooler is under pressure when running. Mine also had the brown goop you mentioned, I had a look at the old cooler yesterday and saw the brown goop has dried up, I tapped it a few times it dislodged like a fine brown dust.