Oil Filter leak

[Hassell McClanahan]

For your Info..I had an oil leak on my way back home from Florida, did not know it was leaking until I pull into my driveway at home, oil all over my toad.  So the next day I checked out just about everthing I could to find the leak since oil was everywhere.  My inspection found the oil filter was very loose, so got a new filter and so far no more problem.  My ? is why did it loosen?  I just got it in 2011 and had it two yr.before  it happened.  It's a 2006 Monterey.

[Edward Buker]

Hassell.

It is going to be hard to come up with any definitive answer. Two things come to mind. Was it aftermarket or a Cat filter? If it was Cat then from a design viewpoint it was probably as good a match as there could be to the engine mating surfaces. Cat uses an Oring style seal and a machined cast aluminum metal plate. It is a very robustly built filter. So if it was Cat, the best guess would be that it was not sufficiently tightened when it was installed. They are physically a good sized filter and it may be that it was hand tightened and needed to be finished off with a strap wrench. If it was an aftermarket filter then there could be other possible explanations related to materials and design. Still the best explanation regardless of brand is it was never sufficiently tightened when it was originally put on the engine.

Later Ed

[Gerald Farris]

Hassell,
The only reason that an oil filter loosens up after the original installation is that it was improperly torqued (tightened) at the original installation. However, if the oil filter had been on your engine for 2 1/2 years, it was way past due for replacement. The Cat maintenance schedule for your coach calls for oil and filter change yearly.

Gerald

[Lee Welbanks]

Gerald was wondering the same thing 2 1/2 yrs is just a bit too long, In all my years up and down the roads in a truck I have never heard of a oil filter coming loose, leaking when first installed but never later.

[Joel Ashley]

The only plausible explanation to my mind is what Ed alluded to:  the filter was hand-tightened when installed and the tech or owner was distracted or just incompetent and didn't come back with a filter wrench to finish the job.  Over time, road vibrations eventually spun it loose enough to make any leaking finally obvious to Hassell.  The same thing happened the first time the oil and filter were changed on our genset (at BCS  ??) ), and in my infamiliarity with the coach, and diesels in general, I thought the very slow leak on my home pad was from the fuel tank vent hose or something.  Eventually I discovered the relatively loose genset filter and snugged it up.

I hope Hassell topped up the oil, but it sounds like he's overdue for a scheduled maintenance service anyway.

Joel

[Gerald Farris]

Lee,
I have seen oil filters start leaking several times months after installation, and most of them were installed by the same employee. The correction has always been just tightening the filter. Most automotive oil filters are designed to "hand tighten only", but there are many levels of hand tightening. I have seen filters that were "hand tightened" that my 9 year old granddaughter could easily remove, but if I "hand tighten" a filter, you will need a strap wrench to remove it.

Gerald  

[Les Brandt]

It could simply be that the filter didn't have some oil applied to the rubber seal and could not be tightened to its proper torque at installation. I've had that happen to me.