Coolant leak at oil filter housing,

I have a very slow coolant leak at the oil filter housing, looks like seeping out from the outer edge, very slow drip of coolant. Can the housing have a Crack in it. Did a pressure check on the cooling system, that didn't increase the leak very strange.
Anyone had this problem, what's the fix.

Probably the gasket between the housing and block, fairly common failure point.

You could also remove the oil filter, and re tighten the stud the filter screws into. I did my yearly oil change and then looked under the car, and saw what you were describing. Did this, and all is well. But yes the housing is prone to cross contamination, or leaking. There is rebuild kits out there too.

yes this is very common. as @Fastback said, try to tighten that 1/2" hex stud and hopefully it stops it. after having the exact same thing happen to me early on, now i check the torque on it with every oil change. best of luck

FYI, the torque for the center stud is like 45ft-lbs.

for sure its the gasket between the block and the housing its a common failure on ford vehicles of this age I've replaced two of them one in the cobra and the one on my expedition in the past 3 months .

If you replace the gasket between the assembly and the block make sure you put the old one over the new and it’s the right part. There’s 2 different styles and I’ve seen parts store mix them up. At a glance they look correct but won’t seal.

Mines been leaking a little too. I have the rebuild kit but I plan on tightening that hex bolt first. Then trying the main gasket (housing-to-block). If those don’t fix it, I’ll try to rebuild the cooler itself (seems to be hit or miss on that actually being successful). I would like to get my GT oil filter adapter modded to work with the cobra but I don’t know who can do that.

Heres the correct part number for the gasket for reference

FEL-PRO 70801​

I rebuilt the oil cooler since I was there already it was pretty simple I wanted to get rid of the cooler but you would have to do a remote oil filter which I'm not a fan of unless you had someone modify the tube on the oil filter housing to make it work with out the cooler.

To add to the above, wasn’t there threads back in the day going to the coolerless housing that came on the GT’s 4.6? It deleted the cooler and just ran a line to the radiator.

Our oil cooler isn’t much of a cooler as it is a oil heater.


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Unfortunately the housing from the GT cannot be used because of the way the water outlet is positioned it would hit the alternator and yeah the "oil cooler" is actually a heater there was a guy that had the GT housing modified to have the outlet extend around the alternator.