3.8 oil leak at oil filter

Hey everyone. I've been dealing with an oil leak that I noticed in the beginning of the fall. It appeared to be either the pan or the rear main. So with the cold weather behind us I got to work on it yesterday. I dropped the pan and thankfully the rear main was not leaking. The flywheel and bellhousing were dry and clean. I dropped the pan down replace the upper gasket and even resealed the lower pan. Obviously new oil and filter at same time. I let it sit overnight to cure. Today, I did about 70 miles and when I got home I crawled underneath to check it out. Since it was all clean as of yestersay. So to my surprise I had oil on along the upper part of the pan right between the motor mount and the oil filter. I saw drip of oil come from the filter! It was not loose. I have 130k+ on it. Use the oem filter and have done every oil change myself. I'd upload a pic but, either I can't or just haven't figured out how to lol. I am 100% its coming from oil filter. As I drive it blows the oil back along pan and onto bellhousing. Has anyone dealt with this? A Google search came up with dozens of this complaint but, no answers..

Here's the leak. This was spotless before this afternoon. The circled spot is where it was dripping from. I wiped it clean before I took the pic.

Another view here you can see where it gets wet. The second screw seems to get dripped on when the jeep is in motion

I don't mean to insult your mechanical ability but did you clean the surface and properly tighten the filter?

I only ask because I made this mistake on a girlfriends Camry a couple years ago.

You may have 2 rubber gaskets on this filter. Occasionally the old oil filter gasket will stick to the sealing surface. When installing the new oil filter, the 2 gaskets together will cause the oil to leak from this area.

Pyro1415 said:

I don't mean to insult your mechanical ability but did you clean the surface and properly tighten the filter?

I only ask because I made this mistake on a girlfriends Camry a couple years ago.

Click to expand...

Just to piggyback on this...maybe the rubber seal was still stuck to the block when you pulled the old filter off?

Exactly what happened to me.

That filter looks deformed ???

No insult taken. But, yeah.. checked all the obvious double gasket, cleaned oil filter mating surface. Even put another filter on it. After sleeping on it I believe I came up with the problem.