Ford Transit Van Oil Cooler & Filter Housing Replacement Guide [2.2 FWD Transit Oil Leak Solved] 13

I noticed a couple of spots of oil on my driveway when I moved my Ford Transit Mk7 Campervan, when I took a look underneath I could see that there was an oil leak dripping that seemed to be coming from between the oil cooler block and the oil filter housing. It wasn’t very much but I knew I would have to do something about it before it got any worse.

Here's a link to the oil cooler housing and filter I used: https://ebay.us/sM1xkM
Ford Motorcraft A5 Engine Oil Synthetic 5W30 5 Litre: https://ebay.us/1i4B0k
Ford Transit Mk7 2.2 TDCi Service Kit Oil Air Cabin Filter: https://ebay.us/IyBBYn
Granville Rapid Cool Red Antifreeze Concentrate 5L: https://ebay.us/PUIdms

Previously I had an issue with a very similar oil cooler on a Ford Fiesta TDCI, only in that case something went wrong inside it and the oil and coolant mixed together. I thought it was the head gasket at first. Cleaning the oil out of the cooling system took a long time, luckily the engine hadn’t been run much with coolant in the oil and after the repair did 10’s of thousands of miles more before being retired. I didn’t want this to happen to the Ford van.

At first I was intending to replace the seal between the cooler and the housing. But I couldn’t find an OEM oil seal and aftermarket seals ones were about 30% of the cost of a full replacement oil filter housing with new oil cooler. Having had the previous bad experience with one of these oil coolers I decided to replace the whole unit for a new one. It struck me that there are so many of these available from different suppliers that they must fail regularly. I found out there there is an upgraded oil cooler and filter housing which is what I bought.

I am not sure what else is upgraded but the things I noticed were; the seal on the block is now a rubber seal rather than a gasket; instead of a cartridge the oil filter is now a canister type; and the actual cooler unit seems a little bigger.

When I came to do the job I found that the leak had got considerably worse with a puddle of oil forming underneath. I was pleased that I had decided to take action and not just live with what was a slight oil leak.

The job itself is quite easy. I was a little concerned about breaking one of the mounting bolts, but that turned out not to be an issue. Maybe because I did take the trouble to warm the engine through then cool the ends of the bolts and loosen them before starting the job.

Steel bolts into alloy blocks have caused me a problem in the past so I am always concerned when removing this kind of assembly. It only takes one broken bolt to make a simple job a real problem.

I torqued the mounting bolts up to 18 nm which is probably a little on the light side, but I will keep an eye on it. I have seen too many threads in engine blocks damaged by people thinking just a little tweak more!

Once I had replaced the filter housing I put in fresh oil, 6.2 litres and used red coolant, the spec is 10 litres, but it only took around 8. This isn’t unusual as there are lots of areas in the radiators and block where the coolant will stay. The coolant didn't look like it had been in so long, so I didn’t bother flushing the cooling system through.

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