The weight had nothing to with it.

It was simply torqued on too tight.

He's not the first Z to have an oil cooler installed this way. Do you think we will be seeing more failures like this?

Thanks Gale, Thats was going to be my follow up

I got 15k on mine and have not had any issues

30k here, no issues

I have to agree with this. Over-torqued. And why weld it when you can buy that upper pan.

Now this is going to make me check on how much tension my oil lines have on them at the plate. :(

Pulled a couple of sheets from the service manual for interest sake,

Torque spec for the oil filter,

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4b7e708f.png

Exploded view of the upper oil pan,

http://i1188.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8587b60b.png

It would be hard to apply enough torque on a oil filter to snap the alloy casting, the mechanic woud have to have been a complete idiot and the oil filter installed would show signs of distortion.

Usually when you over tighten a oil filter, the hex head edges will easily round off.

All odds are that the dealer will blame the problem on the installed adapter and deny any kind of waranty service.

PLZ keep us posted on what the dealer does....... Sorry to see this........:shakes head:

But the dealer installed the adapter bc they sold him the oil cooler. What is weird is the tech must have just barely over torqued to stretch the aluminum just enough for it to have the tinniest stress crack for it to last over a year of the aluminum expanding an contracting going from hot to cold. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. That's probably what the dealership is thinking. Especially if they don't service the car they may say to the OP that it could have been done by who ever does the oil changes maybe when the filter was off somebody checked the sandwich plate for tightness and put a turn on it trying to be pro active making sure the seal was good and if the upper pan was still a little hot, bam there is your stresser on the upper pan.

OP you said they did a rear main seal when your clutch was done. Did they do an oil change to??? Maybe that's how this happened. Bc I doubt over torquing from a year ago would have lasted this long.

It's not the oil filter that was over tighten. But the adapter nut that holds the adapter plate in place that was over tighten. If you ever installed an oil cooler. You would know on what I'm talking about. ;)

So the dealer is fixing it free of charge regardless of whether Nissan itself warranties it or not as like a one time thing type of deal. They still are trying to imply the added stress from the weight of the lines/connector was an issue but if that was really the case I think we would see people with oil coolers all over the forum seeing similar problems. I think its really that the thing was just over-torqued but it could have been something else as well (shoddy oil pan from the factory).

Anyway I should *hopefully* get my car back on Wednesday. This has caused yet another week without my car. Ive driven it like twice in the last 3 weeks now. Makes me a sad panda.

Glad to hear the dealer is taking care of this. Are they also reinstalling the oil cooler?

They better be. They did not say that they weren't going to re-attach it and from talking to them the oil-cooler is not damaged just the oil pan is.

Great to hear :tup:

Finally got the car back. Kind of a bad smell coming from the engine area. I think its because it was not completely cleaned. The bill ended up being $1200 (which they covered). Apparently you gotta replace valves and other **** when you replace the top oil pan (according to them).