Good news if you have an oil leak

BlackIceLSC

Registered
Catchy thread title, huh? But really, if you have an oil leak, and you have a Napa oil filter on your car, read this:

Ok seriously...I have already replaced a few oil filter housing gaskets in my Mark VIII history (see link attached to my HOW TO article), so nothing but dread crossed my mind last weekend on Sunday afternoon, no less.

How To article

http://www.markviii.org/LOD2/oil_filter_gasket.html

I let my 98 LSC idle for a while to warm up and when I backed out, there was a small puddle of oil under it. DRAT!
I crawled under the front(had to exhale to get my chest under the lowered beast) and there was oil dripping from the k-member under the oil filter.
Mind you, I changed the oil and filter about 3800 miles ago, and there were no leaks then so I assumed it wasn't a loose filter.

I got the aluminum race jack out and lifted the driver's side, threw a jack stand under it(safety first = cant fix an oil leak if you're dead) and cleaned the area off. I checked the oil level and it was still full on the dip stick. So I grabbed the oil filter praying it was loose. Sure enough, I got 1/4 turn out of it.
"what the....?" I asked myself.

started the engine back up and crawled under the car and watched...no drips...YES!
But NO....after about 20 seconds, it began to drip again. Not from the oil filter but from around the back of it where I couldn't see(back on the firewall side of the filter). DRAT...oil filter housing. I let the car sit all week as I couldn't risk the 25 mile drive to work with it leaking that bad, not to mention the mess.

I bought new oil, a filter and a housing gasket and set out to my brother-in-law Tommy's shop yesterday(6 mile jaunt).
I lifted it on his rack and there was oil everywhere. He looked and said "wait a darn minute...you have a NAPA oil filter on there? They leak...BAD"

Huh?...I've always used them...we stock them at work and use them 5-7 times a day....then it dawned on me...we've also had a few bad ones lately...some that wont thread on right...some that came back with a leak.

I decided to take the filter off, clean the area and remove the left front wheel. I peeked in from the side and didn't see any traces of housing gasket failure.
I decided "what the heck, throw a new filter on, change the oil, and add some dye and run it to check for leaks"

I cleaned the k-member to a show-shine condition and filled it up with oil and some dye and started the engine. Lifted the car up and let it run for about 10 minutes. NOT A DROP!

After carefully inspecting the old filter it was painfully obvious what the problem was. The o-ring(gasket) on the old filter was paper-thin...especially compared to the STP filter I used. I even had an old Motorcraft 820 filter on the shelf that I had dropped years ago but never threw it out. The STP and Motorcraft filter's O-RINGS were thicker and the design of the threaded bore was different than the NAPA Pro Select filter.

So after re-checking, letting it sit for several hours and then checking again, there wasn't a single drop of oil on the k-member and the seal area was dry/clean. Even after the drive home I re-checked and not a trace of any leaks. I was happy I didn't have to perform the housing gasket job. But more importantly, I learned that I need to return all the NAPA filters we stock at our shop as they are now a HUGE Liability.

My shop is a NAPA AUTO CARE shop with a NAPA auto parts store right next to us. We stock the Master-packs of Pro Select filters....well, we USED to.

So word to the wise...DO NOT USE NAPA oil filters!
 
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