Jay Gaulard

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Archives for March 2017

Fixing an Oil Leak on Our 2009 BMW 328xi

For the past year, we’ve had a very elusive oil leak somewhere around the engine of our 2009 BMW 328xi. In general, I’m a very mechanical person, so I have to tell you that it was extremely frustrating not being able to find the source of the leak. Basically, everything around the front, driver’s side of the engine was wet with oil. The odd thing was, the car never ran low. During the entire year the leak occurred, I only had to add oil once. That was only half a quart. So, something was causing the front corner of the engine to get wet with oil, but it wasn’t a constant flow. If it had been constant, I would have had to add more oil as time went on. Strange.

A few days ago, I formed a great idea. I told Laura that we should clean the engine with some Simple Green and then let it run until we see something seep out of somewhere. If we could get rid of the old disgusting oil that had accumulated on all the aluminum, we’d definitely have a better view of what was going on. My gut instinct told me that the culprit was either the oil filter housing or the valve cover. Both of these areas are close together and neither one would be tremendously tough to fix. Take time to fix – yes. Something I couldn’t do – no. I can do it all.

Because of this great idea, I decided to grab the flashlight and go outside to the car. My plan was to stand there with the hood up and look at nothing and everything at the same time. I do this a lot when I think and I needed the flashlight to look behind all the nooks and crannies. It was a chilly morning and the car hadn’t been driven yet. This means the engine was cold.

A few minutes later, Laura joined me. I like to ask for her perspective because I oftentimes get locked in tunnel vision. She’s a genius and has saved me a number of times. It’s wonderful to have someone with such a different type of mind so close by.

As we stood there, I pointed out what I thought was happening. The oil was covering various parts, but only up to a certain point. I explained that the oil filter housing gasket was probably the cause, because the “wetness” only reached half way up that particular part. She seemed to agree. Then, for some reason, I started the car. She gasped and this is what I saw upon returning to the engine.

Leaking Oil Filter Cap on 2009 BMW 328xi

After she gasped, I gasped. What in the world? By the way, it’s the oil filter cap the leak is stemming from.

Here’s the deal. I’ve watched this engine run a thousand times and have never seen this. The thing is, every single time I’ve watched the engine while the car was on, it was after we drove around somewhere. The engine was hot. Because of this, I suspect, the aluminum had somewhat expanded, sealing the leak. So when I looked closely, I didn’t wee anything. Just wetness below that area. Now that I witnessed what was going on with a cold engine, I saw something totally different. This would explain everything.

I knew what needed to happen. I had to purchase a new oil filter, which would come with a new o-ring set and a copper crush washer for the drain bolt. I also needed to purchase some fully synthetic oil and a torque wrench to tighten the drain bolt with. I’ve never changed the oil on this car and have never owned a torque wrench. Since everything is aluminum on this engine though, I really didn’t feel like stripping out the bolt threads. Plus, torque wrenches are really cool.

This morning was the chosen day for this project. I received the last bit of everything yesterday and the temperature was forecast to be over 40 degrees. Bearable for me to be laying on my back outside.

The first thing I did was to loosen the oil filter cap and remove it in its entirety. For those who don’t know, this is what it looks like with that cap gone, with the inside of the oil filter housing exposed.

Removed Oil Filter Cap on BMW 3 Series

And here’s what the old oil filter looked like.

Old Used BMW Oil Filter

The strange thing is, when I tried to remove the filter from the cap assembly, the rubber part of the filter crumbled. I’m guessing this happened because the filter was so old. We really don’t drive much and the last time I had the oil changed was a while ago.

Crumbled Oil Filter on BMW 328xi

For those of you who are interested, this is what it looks like inside the oil housing cap.

BMW 328xi Oil Filter Housing Cap

To begin the repair, I cleaned the inside of the housing carefully. I wanted to make sure there was no dirt in there and that there were no cracks or anything.

BMW Oil Filter Housing

Then, I cleaned the entire cap with some hot soapy water in a bucket. I wanted everything spotless for the new filter. By the way, the filter kit part number is 11427566327.

Genuine OEM BMW Oil Filter Part Number 11427566327

I got this online for around $12.

After everything was clean, I put the filter in the cap and changed both o-ring gaskets.

New Oil Filter Installed in Housing Cap for BMW 3 Series

I also coated both o-rings and the inside of the housing with some old oil to make it easier to screw the cap back on.

Finally, I replaced the cap and tightened it to 18 foot pounds of torque. This torque specification is the same for the drain bolt.

Replaced BMW Oil Filter Housing Cap

I’ll tell you one thing, tightening this cap down wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be. That o-ring is fairly bulky and squeezing it into place took some effort. It doesn’t leak now, so I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

That was the easy part. Next, I had to jack up the car and drain out the old oil.

Since I have a brand new jack, I was happy to get a chance to use it. I also have some sweet jack stands I purchased a while ago for times like this. I carefully jacked the car up and put about a hundred safety blocks in place.

Jacking Up a BMW

I had the emergency brake on, both rear tires chocked, safety jacks in place and both front tires sitting on big 4×6 inch blocks. I also kept some tension on the floor jack. I felt safe enough to get under the car.

To access the drain bolt, I used a regular screwdriver to open up a small hatch in the plastic engine shield. If you look at the next photo, you can see all the oil covering the plastic from the leak. Boy, that’s ugly. We definitely have to bring this car through the drive through car wash to clean the undercarriage.

BMW Oil Drain Bolt Hatch

BMW Oil Drain Bolt

I used my new Dewalt socket set to remove the drain bolt. It happened to be 17mm. I let the oil drain into my huge GarageBOSS 16 quart oil drain pan.

Changing the Oil in a BMW 3 Series

While the oil was draining, I decided to clean that little plastic flap that was covering the drain bolt. I hate dirty disgusting things.

Plastic BMW Oil Drain Bolt Flap

I also cleaned the oil drain bolt, removed the old washer and replaced it with the new one.

New BMW Oil Drain Bolt

When the oil was finished draining, I replaced the bolt and tightened it with my new Tekton torque wrench. This wrench has a 1/2 inch drive and is good between 10 and 150 foot pounds of torque. It’s pretty sweet.

Tekton Torque Wrench Box

Tekton Torque Wrench Measurments

Tekton Torque Wrench Head

When I was finished under the car, I lowered it down and added 6 quarts of some really sweet Castrol Edge fully synthetic motor oil.

Castrol Edge Fully Synthetic Engine Oil

The oil is about $5 per quart, but it’s what the BMW dealer uses for their oil changes. It’s also good for 15,000 miles, so I don’t have to worry about doing this again for a little while. Since we’ve only driven about 5,000 miles since 2013, it may be a long while.

Anyway, that’s how I fixed the oil leak that was coming from the oil housing cap on our car. If you’re attempting a project like this and need any assistance, leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!


It’s Time to Tap the Trees Again

A few weeks ago, we had weather that made me think spring was going to come early this year. The warmer weather lasted about a week before it ended. It got very cold again and dumped another 16 inches of snow on us. During the warm week, however, many folks around here tapped their maple trees. I didn’t realize this was going to happen and when I found out, I became very jealous. I thought I was missing out on something.

With all my might, I held back any action. I knew it was too early, even if they did manage to get some sap from their maples. As it turns out, while they were marginally successful, their buckets and hoses were at a standstill during the big freeze. This made me feel a little better – meaning, I didn’t think I was missing out on something as much.

Maple syrup season will pass you right by if you don’t pay attention. If you’re too late, you’ll end up drilling a hole in a tree only to find dry dust. It’s sort of like the swimming lake turning at the end of August. That means summer is over. A maple tree that gives no more sap means this season has ended. It’s sort of depressing when you think about it.

Our weather forecast is telling me that we’re in for a wonderful week. It’s mostly sun. We’ll start out at a high of 28 degrees today and end the 5 days with a high of 47. If you were to ask any enthusiast who lives in northern New England, they’d tell you this is maple tapping weather if they ever heard it.

I decided to go with 6 buckets this year as opposed to the 18 I went with last year. The reason for this is that it’s much less work. Also, I get about 80% of my sap from the area I tapped this afternoon. I used what I call my “prize” trees. These are the ones, on the right day, that will give me 5 gallons over a 24 hour period. It’s amazing what 40 degrees and some sunshine will do.

The other reason I decided to go with only 6 buckets is because I’m getting tired of having to suffer through the heat of a cranking wood stove. It’s a bad scene. The warmer it gets outside, the hotter I have to make the fire in the wood stove to boil off the liquid inside. I suppose I can think of it as part of the charm. It does get hot in my little room though. So hot that I sweat and sweat for hours. I made a gallon and a half of Maine’s finest maple syrup last year though, so all that suffering was worth it.

I decided to walk you through my simple process for tapping a maple tree. I came up with this last year and it worked flawlessly. I’m not sure I could have done this any other way and get the same results. I would like to try having multiple hoses go into one bucket, but if we get a warm night, I think it might overflow. For now, this is good.

Tapping Maple Trees

The first rule is to be prepared. To accomplish this, I bring with me the buckets, hoses, hooks, drill, drill bits and a hammer. This time, I also brought my camera.

I first drill a hole in the tree for the tap. I can’t be 100% sure about this, but I think I used a 3/8 inch bit.

Drilling a Tap Hole in Sugar Maple Tree

I drill the hole on the west side. You may hear people tell you to drill it on the south side. Don’t do that. The west side is the warmest in the late afternoon. That’s when you’ll get all your sap. Also, I drill the hole on a downward angle. This isn’t necessary because there’s pressure inside of a tree. You can drill it facing upward and the sap will still come out just fine.

Next, I lightly hammer the tap into the tree. Since I had all my taps and hoses made up from last year, all I had to do with wash them off. I hammered lightly because I know in just a few weeks, I’ll need to pull them out.

Hammering a Tap into Maple Tree

After that, I drill another, much smaller hole below the one I just drilled and twist a hook into the tree.

Twisting Hook into Tree

This was the first hook I put in today. I didn’t drill a hole first, so I used my pliers. For the remaining trees, I used the drill, so I was able to turn all of them by hand.

The reason I add the hook into the operation is because I can easily hang my bucket from it. Check this out.

Hanging Bucket From Hook on Maple Tree

Now, here’s the trick. I know it’s going to snow and rain some more. It isn’t reasonable to think that I’ll head outside to remove the buckets from the trees before it does this. Therefore, I decided to drill some holes in the lids of the buckets that the hose will tightly fit through. Last year, I didn’t have any outside liquid get into my buckets, even after it poured a few nights. It worked wonderfully.

Maple Sap Buckets

As the next few weeks pass, the snow will get lower and the buckets will get higher. It’s entertaining. Some of these taps I had to kneel to drill. In just a little while, I’ll be reaching up to some others.

I’m excited for this year’s season. Maine Maple Sunday is coming up on March 27 and I think I may have some syrup by then. I’ll be able to walk around with my chest all puffed out thinking I’m one of the producers. We can talk shop, if you know what I mean.

Thanks for reading!


Titan Socket Adapter Set for My Cordless Drill

There was a time when we, as humans, used manual drills. These drills were from decades ago and were either shaped like a weird “S” or were straight up and down with a large gear handle attached to the side. Either way you look at it, they weren’t electric and weren’t automatic in any which way. You could probably find these old style drills if you poke around an antique shop long enough.

During the same time, we used these things called screwdrivers. I’m sure you know what they look like, so I won’t go into that. Screwdrivers are manually operated, just like the drills where. It wasn’t until the battery powered cordless drill came onto the scene did we move away from the screwdriver and towards something much easier on the wrist (not to say we don’t use screwdrivers anymore). Today, if I can use the power driver, I’ll use it. Ain’t no way I’m sitting there twisting a screwdriver for a half hour if I could use a tool that would take three seconds to accomplish the same task.

Pondering these types of tools got me thinking about other things. What else could I take advantage of that would make life easier? By far, the most popular tool I use, almost on a daily basis, is my DeWalt cordless drill. I use it for both drilling things and screwing and unscrewing things. The tool is always an arm’s reach away.

A while back, I picked up a really cheap set of power nut drivers. If you’ve never seen these things, they look like screwdriver bits with sockets attached to the ends. Basically, you pick the appropriate size for the job, stick the end in the cordless drill chuck, tighten and begin doing what you need to do. The problem is, you oftentimes end up not having the properly sized nut driver. When you purchase the set, you’ll likely end up with twelve or fourteen pieces. Standard? Metric? Who knows. It’s almost as if you need to buy an entire nut driver set that mirrors a socket set. Hmmm…

Check this out.

Socket Adapter Installed in DeWalt Cordless Drill

Do you see what I have installed in my cordless drill? That’s what’s called a “socket adapter.” Instead of chasing down nut drivers that come in all sizes and shapes, I decided it may be more efficient to simply buy an adapter that I could attach any of my 200 new sockets to. I can use extensions, adapters and anything I would use a regular socket wrench for – right here with this adapter. And what’s even better is that the small package I purchased for only around $5 came with an adapter for all three socket sizes. They’re impact grade, which means the steel is strong. The drives include 1/4″, 3/8″ and 1/2″. Here, take a look:

Socket Adapters

I feel like I had one of those genius moments around the time I bought this kit. I’ve been using nut drivers forever and now that I have the freedom to choose any socket from my new set to use, it’s just damn liberating.

Now, I knew you’d want to read the labels and packaging for this kit, so I took photos of both sides. If you want to enlarge either photo, right-click on the image and choose “Open Image in New Window.” Enjoy!

Titan Socket Adapter Set

Titan Socket Adapter Set Instructions and Details


New Tekton Adjustable Wrenches

How does one write a blog post that talks about adjustable wrenches? I’m not sure, but I’m going to give it a try. I get so excited about tools these days that it’s difficult to contain myself. I figure that sharing is where it’s at, if for nothing else than to get my thoughts out there in the open.

Okay, I’ve got a story for you. A while back, I began going through my tools in an effort to clean things up. Way back in the day, before I moved out of my parent’s house, I stored all my sockets and wrenches, among other things, in a five gallon bucket. It was a mess. Now, for all the tool lovers out there, I know I just made you cringe. The mere thought of me sticking my hand in that bucket in search of a screwdriver and having my finger punctured by a single steel wire from one of my wired brushes makes me want to somehow erase the entire memory from my mind. Luckily, as the years passed, I matured and began separating what I had into different toolboxes and plastic bins. Even today though, I’m still a mess. It’s atrocious and I’m embarrassed whenever I think of what I’ve done to myself. Imagine it as sort of like storing all your kitchen appliances in a wheelbarrow that’s kept in the corner of the dining room. You know – the blender, toaster and all your knives. It’s really not good.

So, in an effort to rid myself of this dark side, I recently purchased some wrenches and a beautiful socket set. I already used the sockets and I’m happy to report that everything went splendidly. Since I know you’re just dying to read about those tools, feel free to click through to that post.

A few evenings ago, I picked up some adjustable wrenches. I already have two, one of which is half way broken, but am storing them in the truck to deal with unforeseen circumstances. Since those are now spoken for, I had to replace them for my “at home” collection. Trust me, there’s nothing wrong with having more than one of the same tool, especially when you get to drool over them while shopping.

After peeking around for a while. I decided to go with the Tekton brand. I already have two of their wrench sets and am hearing more and more about their popularity. In the case of my most recent purchase, I went with two wrenches – a 12″ and a 15″.

Tekton Adjustable Wrenches

As I was deciding on which brand to purchase, I stumbled across a few themes. It seems as though other tool owners and shoppers concern themselves with three things. I’ll cover them below, in order of most important to least important.

Country of Origin – This is absolutely huge. I never knew folks cared so much about where their tools were made. Let’s just say that if I were to launch a company that made tools, I’d have MADE IN USA stamped all over each and every piece that left the warehouse. This is, by far, what everyone out there in interland talks about. They say the Chinese tools are garbage. Tools from Taiwan are getting better, tools from any European country are very much sought after and tools made in the USA are the cat’s meow. While I understand production cost is a huge deal for toolmakers, from what I’ve read, consumers are willing to pay more for localized pieces of chrome. That’s just the way it is. Even Craftsman went over to Asia, but now has a USA line. I guess offering both is a good idea.

Fit and Finish – I couldn’t believe how many people talked about the play between the moveable slide jaw of an adjustable wrench and the remainder of the steel. That little “wiggle” needs to be kept to a minimum to keep consumers happy. If you don’t know or don’t care about things like this, by all means, grab yourself a lower end wrench. But for all those collectors out there, which I fear I’m quickly turning into, a tight fit is what matters.

Strength – Surprisingly, while this is an important topic, it didn’t even come close to the previous two. I guess everyone knows that high quality steel can be produced globally now that it’s just not as much of a concern as it used to be. For some though, there was serious discussion on the topic.

Adjustable Wrench Heads

I”m sort of a middle of the road guy at this point. These Tekton adjustable wrenches were made in China. The reason I didn’t care too much about this is because their prices reflected their country of origin. I took a gamble that I’d be okay, since I really don’t use these sorts of wrenches all too often. Their tolerances are tight and their function is smooth. For the price of $19.99 for the 15″ wrench and just $10.42 for the 12″ one, I’m happy.

Tekton Wrench Handles

Tekton Adjustable Wrench Tags

You know what’s weird? I don’t think I’ve ever owned a brand new adjustable wrench. It’s odd to hold a clean one in my hand.

Adjustable Wrench Worm Gear

I know the first time I use these on the lawnmower or something, they’ll get all dirty. I’ll just have to be sure to clean them up afterwards and to rub a nice coating of Fluid Film on them to stave off the rust. That’s a hint – Fluid Film works on tools too! Oh yeah, it also works as a battery terminal protectant. Thanks for reading!