Oil filter leaking

Hemi RT wrote:
Did the seal from the first filter stay stuck to the block? If this happens you'll get a leak as the 2 seals don't seal together very well, take the filter off and check before something serious happens. You can reinstall the filter or just replace it and top up the oil level.

This was my thought....double gasket-ing which is an extremely bad condition. Two gaskets stacked won't hold for the life of the oil change. When oil pressure and heat is high for extended periods, the gaskets will blow out and you will have a catastrophic loss of oil under the worst of circumstances. You could loose the engine if that happens.

As far as tightening an oil filter is concerned, I wipe clean the metal surface that the gasket seals against, then smear a film of oil on the new gasket, and hand tighten the filter as tight as possible. I am not that strong of a guy and have never been able to over-tighten an oil filter by hand.

Ruling out oil that had originally been on the outside of the filter, if you have done everything right and still get a drip now and then, I would replace the filter. With the filter off, I would inspect the metal mating surface for anything that may cause an improper seal. Make sure that surface is 100% clean. Bad metal corrosion might also be the culprit. But it is more likely the gasket originally good, but had been damaged or deformed during storage or handling, either by you or the store that sold it to you. I say this because in all my years with oil filters (I volunteer as a mechanic) I have never seen a filter that was made wrong, just handled wrong somewhere along the way. And even then it is extremely rare.