Bigpower

hi
my engine has just dropped a large amount of oil on the road, in a very short distance.
my roadside stripdown led to the oil filter being the suspect: there was oil all splashed across the front of the engine and it was visibly seeping out of the oil filter flange.

has this happened to anyone else before? the filter is a blitz item, one of the small shiny "racing" ones of which this is my third. at the point in time i would guess the rubber sealing strip has perished due to the winter (filter was fitted just before the dyno day in november)...does this sound likely to anyone else?

the engine was running fine right up until this point, i smelt burning oil and saw smoke coming out of the bonnet vent and pulled over immediately so i think the engine will be fine. was only pootling along at 1800rpm

thoughts, suggestions and condolences please

I have seen this happen to another car as it just seemed to undo it self and fall off.
Good job you noticed in time.
Could have been the rubber seal or just a weird case of it becoming loose.

no way is the filter loose, i couldnt budge it at all!
as luck would have it, a mate had a spare filter which looks like it'll fit mine, so come tomorrow morning ill be stabbing the duff one with a screwdriver and testing with this spare one

hopefully its not the pressure relief valve sticking, which will annoy me slightly :/

replacement oil filter fixed it. it took 1.5 litres of millers finest to restore the level to its previous level

glad it was a cheap fix