Hi all, first time post here and new to boating and these engines. Another oil leak issue to add!
We have a BMC 1.5 on a narrowboat. Had boat for about a year, although not been out much with lockdown etc. Just headed out for the summer. Did service, replacing oil filter before heading out. After first day noticed oil was level was dropping and ended up in bilge, steadily through a day (4/5 hours of motoring, dropped from MAX Mark to just below MIN, but not empty).
After looking at this forum, I checked while running and saw it sheeting down side of oil filter housing, assumed something up with the O ring.
Took filter off - with the single bolt from the top, as had done for the filter change, and this time took 'bracket' off (two horizontal bolts), I'd read somewhere that it was OK to do this, to actually see the O ring. Sure enough, it was wonky and split, I replaced this with a spare and reassembled. Filled with oil to max mark.
Ran engine at mooring for about 20 mins, with container under filter, watched for a few mins and stayed close by for the time. Filter seemed fine, not sheeting down side as before (hard to see down under it, but felt around and certainly no major drips). After a while running engine note changed and oil pressure dropped. Immediately turned off engine, and dipstick showed hardly any oil.
Rechecked filter housing and tightened bolts, everything is oily in there at the moment but looked fairly clean around there (certainly didn't look like a whole engine worth of oil had just dumped out from it).
Put last of spare oil in and ran for a few minutes while looking underneath (as best as possible in there), and persistent drip/stream coming from underneath, sort of looks somewhere under what I think is starter motor (hard to see). This continued for a few seconds after stopping engine, then stopped.
Definitely wasn't leaking to this extent yesterday, it was dropping but over hours not minutes/seconds. Only touched the filter housing today, and fairly sure I didn't knock anything. Wish I hadn't touched anything now!
Any ideas what's happened here?
Thanks!
Ps. I've added a couple of pictures of the top, with the oil filter, and one from the bottom (as best I could) - not that I think it shows much (except all the oil in the bilge)