Oil Leak solved

[Mysterytrain]

I've been suffering with a pesty oil leak for sometime now. All indications pointed to the new behr oil cooler. I was able to pressure test the cooler once it was removed from the car and found that it tested good. I reinstalled it with a new set of seals but unfortunately after a few days saw the dreaded drop of oil at the base of the cooler. The oil would drip from the seam [ black circle in the picture below ] and then onto the lip of the SSI heat exchanger below it. It would travel up the lip to the front of the SSI and drip to the garage floor or spill over onto the bottom of the heat exchanger.
Determined to find the source of the leak I jacked the car up on the driver's side..I usually jack the other side. I got under the car and cleaned the oil from the bottom and ran the car. Nothing..not a drop. Walked away and looked at it again the next morning. What I found was surprising. The drop of oil hung from the area near the weld { red circle in the picture below}. Enough had leaked out that the lip of the SSI was wet. I decided that the weld was bad. I removed the heat exchanger, drained the oil from the car, cleaned the area with carb cleaner and applied some JB Weld over the factory bead. Great balls of fire!! I'm pleased to say that my leak is gone. I figured I need to share the odd ball nature of this leak with everyone.

[rusnak]

so where is the leak coming from? I'm a little confused from reading the post. Where is the black circle?

[kach22i]

Dang that's a clean engine, it ain't natural I tell ya.

Are you sure there is oil in the car?

Aren't they supposed to leak?

[Rick V]

There is no spoon.
Man I thought I was a clean freek when it came to my car. I bow to the master.
So how many miles are on that engine? or did you polish the exhaust port for the pic?

[Mysterytrain]

I knew I would get some crap from you guys because of that picture. The photo was taken 2 years ago while the engine was being rebuilt at VCI and still on the stand. Its not quite that clean now..but damn close!
The oil was always hanging from the seam between the cooler and the case which I'm told is fairly common when the seals don't seal or the t-stat or breather leak. The top of the engine was clean and dry, so I thought it was the large cooler seal. Because I had the car jacked up on the driver's side there was a steep pitch that didn't allow the leak from the weld to sneak over to the seam but rather let it hang from the weld. When I saw the seam was dry the light went on in this tired old brain and I realized the weld was at fault. I would guess that Behr QC's the cooler under pressure and they just eyeball the welds on the oil return tube. Basically what you have there is the aluminum tube being welded to the casting. I'm sure I could have found the leak sooner had I used a dye.
The black circle is on the seam between the mounting nuts..the red circle is below it. Sorry they are hard to see.

[goldgunner]

Mysterytrain - Ron

Experienced oil leak after latest rebuild, with engine in, just sitting - hadn't even started it yet.

Just performed partial engine drop, due to apparent leak at the oil cooler, assuming I must have not set the gaskets right, probably leaking around the bottom seal.

What I found - same as your Behr cooler: bad weld leak where the bottom aluminum cross tube mates to the cooler. Looking at it close - it sucks that there's not really much of a weld there at all.

How has the JB weld patch in that location held up in the following years?

[goldgunner]

Here's a photo.
Cooked on oil, with the divot apparent as a bubble - leak zone.