HELP needed to identifying Plastic tabs from INSIDE my engine!

[Jazenn]

Hey fellow BWM owners,

I need help identifying four plastic tabs/clips I found lodged in the oil side of my oil cooler. On my last oil change the filter separated from the cap and I'm guessing it's from that...but I'm waiting on a new cap to open up the car again to confirm. If they match and I've found all broken clips...then I'm okay. But if not, I'm looking for help to identify and what to do if I can't find the missing piece's. Details below on work performed.

2013 BMW x5 Xdrive35i (E70, n55) with 60k Km's (37k mi).

I performed some DYI repairs due to oil leak and burning oil. I'm mechanically inclined, have all the required tools but still learning how to work on the X5 (thanks for this forum and youtube!).

1. Replaced valve cover with a new Elring Valve cover assembly. The removal and reinstallation was straight forward and no issues. Made sure to cover the injectors and pretty confident I didn't leave anything behind. The old cover came off with a little angled manipulation. This fixed my oil leak that was dripping onto the exhaust and smoking oil issue.

2. Replaced serpentine belt, belt tensioner, idler pulley. These had a little oil on them before the repair. After my repair they are pretty covered in oil. See below, oil cooler leak.

3. Replaced both gaskets for oil filter and oil cooler. The car was not super clean and it was hard to tell where oil was coming from, so as preventive maintenance I replaced these gaskets and it seems to get worse and still leaking. I've replaced the gaskets three times with different brands (Rlring, KT and finally BMW) and found the leak not from the gasket but weeping from the space where the heat exchanger is soldered to the mounting plate. Not sure if anyone has every had this happen. I'm waiting on parts.

While taking this apart to replace the gasket I noticed four plastic tabs inside the oil cooler, see pictures.





Can anyone tell me where these could be from?

I've also noticed the engine has a tappet/lifter sound which seems louder than normal. Maybe due to the oil leaking all over the belt, pulley, alternator...it's currently a mess. See attached video.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12iL...usp=drive_link

My questions again.

1. Where are these tabs from? If there is plastic floating around in my oil system is my motor f'd?

2. What could be causing the loud tapping noise?

Thanks in advance for the help. BTW, I'm new to the forum so please be kind and yes I performed an extensive google and forum search before posting.

Best,

[Daytonawim]

The first thing that comes up, are the not broken of the inside of the oil filtercap, there were the inner part is getting lockt in.

Otherwise if is comes out of the engine that would be a bad thing.

[Jazenn]

From all the pictures I've seen of the plastic retainers on oil filter cap I can't find a match and have not idea where in the engine these would come from.

Again I'm waiting for the part before opening it up again.

[StradaRedlands]

Filter cage is what popped into my head as well.

Here are a couple of examples, not quite the same, but maaaaybe:







And something sounds off for sure.

[DWN-N-OUT]

I had the same thing happen in my N55 E82, the plastic tabs came from inside of the filter cage. They are tabs that hold the internals into the cage itself. If it were me I would just replace the whole cage and cap.