I dont do many "Just the Seals" repairs. Parts Ive replaced in the past usually come with the needed seals and gaskets.

My Oil filter housing seems to be fine with the exception of a new leak. Are pretty much all seal kits the same or does anyone recomend a manufacturer/Site?

Ive got a 2014 Clubman R55 N18

Thank you in advance.

 

I did this job on my 2012 R58 in May. I bought the oil filter housing gasket seal set + the oil cooler gasket set from FCP Euro. They're both Elring products, an OE supplier from Germany.

I recommend that you also buy the turbo oil feed/return lines and replace those while you're in there, along with the coolant hoses to the turbo. I went with the ECS kit that included the upgraded feed line,ECS Part #ES#3523277. You'll also need the exhaust clamp unless you're planning to re-use yours. FCP lists it as Mini Exhaust Clamp HJS-83226992, it's about $33.

I'd also say that you should put the front end in service position. While the job can be done without doing so, it's much easier with the extra room and IMO it's actually less time overall.

Good luck!

 

Al the info is here. We have the kits for just those inner and outer seals. Some people just swap out the whole housing with seals if you like.

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

+1 the turbo lines are right their so you can knock that out also.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-to-turbo.html

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

 

ECS. This was exactly what i was looking for. I will be accumulating parts over the next few paychecks and try to handle all repairs at once.
thank you!

 

This is good to know. Ill inspect what condition my lines / hoses are in and probably take your advice. If im going to take "Darla" my clubman off the road for a while to do all this, i want to do it right ( and Once).
Front End Service Postion is handy. Back in the day we had to just dismantle the whole front ends to gain access. There is a guy ( IFIXMINI ) on youtube who shows a very detailed way to gain access also. I learned a few valuable tips.

Thank you

 

When I did this job, I bought the turbo oil line kit, all of the seals for the oil cooler, the coolant lines running to the turbo, and also did the thermostat and coolant pipe. I don't know the mileage on your Clubbie, but I can tell you that the plastic thermostat housing will fail at some point, and when it does it leaks coolant at a very high rate. Same for the coolant crossover pipe, it's a plastic pipe that will eventually fail - the flange end in the water pump housing eventually cracks, and then the o-ring can't hold the seal.

Oh, don't forget to buy a flange gasket for the top end of the catalytic converter, where it connects to the turbo.

 

Mileage will reach 130k before the turn of the year.
ECTuning sells a seal kit for what apears to be everything that mounts to the block. The kit sorta leads me back to my original question of "are all seals created equal" or are there better manufacturers. Are the Seals in a "Full Kit" just as reliable as a buying them buy the individual part?
I now plan on replacing the Thermostat housing and have thoughts on a Metal Coolant Tube.

I replaced the water pump just two years ago and the seal is starting to drip so now i need to research whether my pump is bad...or can i just replace the seal. It was a very tight install so its possible I provoked the leak while installing it.

Thanks for the advice, noted.

 

I don't know what brand of seals ECS uses in their 'assembled by' - they monitor this forum, so they may chime in. In my experience (45 years owning and repairing my VW/Audi/Mini vehicles), most any of the German gasket manufacturers/suppliers (Elring, Reinz, Mahle) are all excellent. I see a supplier listed, "Ajusa", which apparently is a Spain based manufacturer - I'm not familiar with them. The Elring products for this job are not expensive at all and you won't have any issues with them.

Regarding the coolant/crossover pipe - I did a fair amount of scrubbing on this subject before I replaced the one in my R58. You can buy this part pretty cheap for a standard ABS replacement, but there are a lot of people who claim they've had issues with the discount 'knock-offs'. I decided that it wasn't worth it to me to spend the significant amount of money for the metal version of this pipe available from ECS. First, it would have delayed my repair schedule. Second, while in one of my cars the flange end of the pipe itself is what failed, it's about a 50-50 mix of that or the sealing O ring being the cause of a leak. Third, the plastic thermostat housing is just as common a failure item as this pipe is - and because you must remove the thermostat to install the crossover pipe, I didn't see the need to spend 5X the cost on this pipe when I can easily replace when installing the thermostat. There are a fair number of folks on the forums who place a high emphasis on the O-ring seal part of the coolant pipe flange seal; they insist that the OE MINI O-ring is a necessity, and using other rings leads to potential failure. On one of my cars, I didn't pay any attention to this and just used the standard O-ring supplied with the pipe; on the other, I purchased the OE MINI ring. It is a different diameter of material - actually slightly smaller - and supposedly this allows a 'better' install, with less compression or something like that. IMO, what's really critical here is to use a high quality silicone lube for the seal, and be patient when installing. Be confident that it's true(square) and inserted fully.

Addressing your coolant pump - I don't know if you have a replaceable seal style pump or not. I don't recall seeing that as an option on any of the replacement pumps available when I was purchasing, and it really wasn't an issue for me. I installed a new GRAF water pump with a metal impeller, and expect it to last for 150,000 miles, minimum. I can't say that I've ever had a GRAF pump fail. I have 3 of these Gen II cars, and none of them have suffered a pump leak/failure. Yes, the location of the coolant pump is super tight. I do recommend disconnecting the motor mount for this repair, allowing you to adjust the position of the motor to provide easier access. However, there really isn't a great amount of stress placed upon this pump shaft. It's drive by the loaded, non-adjustable friction wheel - so you can't create more stress/load on the shaft than the parts were designed for, as you potentially could in antiquated mechanically adjusted belt drive systems.

 

When you replaced the Turbo Oil Lines from the Kit, did you prepare the threads to the couplings on the hose with anything? Or did you just tighten them down.
Where would i find the Torque specs for those connections? ( hell, where would I find a source of torgue specs for ALL connections lol )

 

I did not use any thread preparer/loctite compound. I think the kit included torque recommendations. They're banjo bolts, so I don't think you'd want to use a locking compound....potentially cause problems when attempting disassembly later on.

Torque specs are all found in the repair manual - if you don't have one they are probably available via Google search. My manual is on the shelf in the garage, can't access the info right now. Many of the connectors/bolts that screw in to the block do not have high torque requirements, these are aluminum blocks so you can easily destroy the threads with heavy hands.