[V6-12v] Project Audi ..Oil cooler seal

[clive young]

The latest on my " project Audi" was a minor but annoying oil leak around the filter housing . At first I thought it was coming from above and was just dripping to there and then I thought it was the filter, eventually I discovered it was coming from between the oil cooler ( the area the oil filter actually fastens too ) and the engine passages on the block. 
    This should rate about a 1-1.5 on the agro scale for anybody who reads this list , but as usual I turned it into about a 4.

I pulled off the filter since I was doing an oil change anyway, there is a nut holding on the oil cooler underneath the filter , I am not sure of the size but it is bigger than 24mm. I used my channel locks even though I detest this tool , In this case it worked great and the nut came right off. I could not figure out how to slide the oil cooler off the "pipe"that the filter fastens to so I ended up disconecting the coolant lines to the cooler. Of course I was not crimped off in the right spots so I ended up losing my expansion tank's worth of expensive pink Audi coolant  I had just put in last month. Anyway it was a real pig getting the lines off but I did and got the cooler out, I cleaned it up , put the new seal in ( $5.00 canadian from the stealer ), Refilled my oil and coolant and bled the coolant system, cleaned up the spilled coolant and oil and was done about 2 hours later .
    My mistake ?. As most of you have probably guessed  or found out on you own : After taking the nut off the pipe that the filter goes on to hold the cooler in place , the pipe screws right out of the engine block by hand, not even a tool required. then you pull the cooler forward , take out the old seal , put in the new one , slap it back together and you are done.... about ten minutes tops plus the rest of the oil change, no coolent hoses disconnected or anything. 

Additional note, after 9 years and and 240,000km the old seal was like rock hard plastic, the new one worked great . I would highly recomend this procedure to anyone while doing an oil change if yours has not been done. 

Hope this helps 

Clive