Been having a bit of oil come down the back of the valley onto the bell housing lately. Decided I’d replace the oil cooler and oil separator while doing an oil change and other maintenance.

Here’s the new items ready to go:


It’s not terribly hard to get to the oil cooler, intake elbow pipe off, throttle body off, drain the coolant, remove the water outlet, remove the oil separator, remove the glow plugs (there’s a bracket behind the oil separator that needs to be removed as well) and then remove the oil filter cap (let it drain a bit) remove the bolts holding the oil cooler and you’re ready for the fight to begin.


There’s one video on YouTube showing the oil cooler removal, ignore it, they cut the bracket that holds the oil separator. You need to get it diagonal with the front by the left water outlet and the rear to the right of the oil separator bracket. You will then need to tap the front down to get it to pass the water outlet on the head. Then wiggle and fight to get it the rest of the way out. Mine liked to hang up on the fuel line repeatedly.

First thing I noticed is the Nissens unit I bought has been updated with an additional oil gallery and the back flow valve looked different.




After getting everything cleaned up and new oil separator seals installed.

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Hi! Planning to do a similar job on my Sport as well (2012 SDV6) and I've got a few questions for you, if you don't mind, please.
- How is the Nissens oil filter and cooler assembly holding up so far? I can source the same part as well, but still pondering between this and the genuine part (~2X more expensive). I'm having a more pronounced start-up rattle as of lately and I'm suspecting the back-flow valve is no longer sealing properly ... normally when I restart the engine after about 10 minutes it used to not rattle, but now it's rattling for about 1 - 2 seconds.
- Any idea if the genuine part that you removed is also made by Nissens (maybe there's a logo somewhere on the old part)?

As a side node, reading the filter specs the Mann has a height of 95 mm, while the Mahle is 96 mm. That extra 1 mm of height might push the back-flow valve better in its seat and that might explain why oil pressure builds up faster (since if the seal is bad, oil will drain from the filter casing even when the cap is closed).

Thanks a lot!

Original is Mann+Hummel. The Nissens is doing just fine with about 10,000km on it. Other than the updated bit you can’t tell them apart. I’ve installed a few Nissens oil coolers and haven’t seen any functional issues with them.

Have you had the oil pump changed? The last oil pump revision was in 2018 I believe.

I chose Mahle due to independent testing I’ve seen. No complaints thus far. 2011 RRS HSE Luxury 3.0 TDV6 Fuji White on Ebony/Ivory
Born and raised in So Cal. Moved to the UK in 2018 for a few years. Now in Poland and looking at moving back to the UK.

Thanks a lot!

I haven't yet changed the oil pump, but I plan on doing it this year hopefully. Car has 150K km at the moment and when I did the previous timing belt change at about 60K, dealer told me the oil pump was fine and didn't need changing.

Talking about oil filters, I did encounter an interesting moment about 2 oil changes ago. I had bought and installed a Mann oil filter and noticed that the rattles on warm start-up (after say 5 - 10 minutes with the engine off) became noticeable, at about 1 - 2 seconds. I immediately bought an OE oil filter - also made by Mann - and the warm start-up rattles reduced considerably. The only difference was the filters' heights: the OE one was about 1 mm taller than the aftermarket one, even though both were made by Mann. My assumption is that with the aftermarket filter, the back-flow valve wasn't closing all the way...

One more question on the oils themselves, please. How would you compare the Castrol Edge Professional with the Ravenol FLJ? Any noticeable remarks on the oil test results from the two? I was using the former up until about 90K km, then I switched to the Ravenol, which seems to behave very well so far.

Last edited by a_a_t on Wed Feb 28 2024 6:59pm. Edited 1 time in total

I’d say that, too, changing oil pumps on a 3.0 diesel is a PITA.

60k for a timing belt change? Seems a waste. That’s like a 170,000 km item.

Personally I’m thinking the rattle is caused by the cam chain tensioner springs wearing over time. Kind of a deal with it or deal with a bunch of work changing both of them. It’s a similar issue with my 2014 Yamaha R1. On start up it would rattle till oil pressure tightened up the chain. Fortunately there was a permanent fix for my R1, no such fix for the TDV6/SDV6 other than new chains/tensioners.

The Ravenol is still in the motor, but will be getting changed shortly after I get back from So Cal in a week. I’ll get it tested and post the results from Blackstone when I do. I’ll be changing to LiquiMoly for the next run.

I can’t say I’ve really noticed much of anything since the switch to Ravenol. I keep hearing a lot of good things about LM so looking forward to trying/testing it. Will be changing the RH inlet manifold when I do it since the gasket is leaking, so that’ll be fun. 2011 RRS HSE Luxury 3.0 TDV6 Fuji White on Ebony/Ivory
Born and raised in So Cal. Moved to the UK in 2018 for a few years. Now in Poland and looking at moving back to the UK.

I did it at 60K because of age... the car had almost 7 years at that point (first owner did only 50K km in about 6 years... so either the car was used on short trips or was used only occasionally).

I read about the timing chain tensioners being the issue too, but that doesn't explain why the warm start-up rattle was 1-2 seconds with the aftermarket Mann filter and almost non-existent with the genuine Mann filter.

I'm thinking of doing a test on the oil filter housing, actually, to see if the inlet and anti-drain-back valves still seal correctly. On the last oil change I did an initial test which seems to confirm my suspicions that one of these valves isn't sealing properly: after I drained the entire oil, I waited for about 1 hour and then removed the filter. The expectation was to notice several hundred ml of oil to drain from the housing, however nothing came out.

If it turns out that it is the oil filter housing, I'll need to find the courage to also tackle the glow plugs as well, which is another potential PITA job. Problem is I just measured them and 2 out of the 6 plugs are dead.

Anyway, looking forward to your oil results, both Castrol and Ravenol!

That makes sense then.

An easier test would be open the filter housing after sitting an hour and see if the filter has oil or if it’s fairly dry. Can do that whenever.

My glow plugs thankfully came out easy. The 3.0’s are different from the 2.7’s and seem just slightly more stout. They also all tested fine, so they all went back in. Have a feeling they may have been changed previously.

I’ve got the Castrol results, it did well for 15,000 km. It was at the end of the TBN, which is why I’m dropping to 13,000 km with the Ravenol so there’s more wiggle room. 2011 RRS HSE Luxury 3.0 TDV6 Fuji White on Ebony/Ivory
Born and raised in So Cal. Moved to the UK in 2018 for a few years. Now in Poland and looking at moving back to the UK.

Good to know that (hopefully) the glow plug job on the 3.0 might be a little easier
I change my oil flat at 10,000 km, which usually correlates to 6 - 7 months of driving. With all the debates about long oil change intervals on the TDV6 / SDV6 that lead to bearing rotations and engine seizure, I figured it's better safe than sorry.