Turnin' Wrenches on the Maxima

This afternoon I braved the hot and humid weather and got caught up on some maintenance that was due on the Maxima.

I was recently able to trace the source of a minor oil leak to the oil cooler housing.  Seems that after 119,000 miles the O-Ring seal wasn't sealing any more.  Not too hard of a fix - pull the right front wheel, remove the splash guard, remove the oil filter, and then you can access the 22MM fitting that holds the oil cooler onto the engine block. The car was due for an oil change anyway, so pulling the oil filter was something I needed to do anyway.

Wheel off, splash shield almost down...

After the oil drained from the filter housing and the oil pan, I started taking the cooler off.

There are two small diameter coolant hoses that attach to the oil cooler housing.  I was ready to disconnect both of them (those yellow SnapOn hose pinch pliers remain one of the best tool purchases I've ever made) , but only needed to pull the one on the right.  Comparing the new O-Ring to the old made it obvious just how much the old one had shrunk.  After cleaning the housing and engine block mating surfaces, I put the new O-Ring in and put everything back together again.  After adding 4.25qt of Mobile 1 5w30 and a bit of coolant to top the radiator off, I started the engine, and....

No leaks, yeah!  The local dealership wanted almost 200$ to replace this O-Ring, and that didn't even include an oil change.  I bought the O-Ring on Amazon from a Nissan parts house for $9 and it only added about half an hour's worth of work to the oil change I was going to do anyway.