Found this in my oil pan

[themnkeygoesmoo]

HI all. I've been lurking for a while and never really posted. I've been active over on talk for years.

My oil pan has been leaking for some time so I decided to finally take it off and reseal it. To my horror I found this all on the bottom of my oil pan.

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My engine has been running fine. Idles perfectly, boosting strong, no knocking etc. My turbo bearings went bad a couple of months ago. I've since then replaced the turbo. Could this be my old turbos bearings I found? The turbo bearings were completely destroyed. I haven't taken off any rod or main bearings. Visual inspection shows nothing out of the usual. Everything on real tight. I'm kind of lost on this.

 

[92AWDHX40]

Sounds like some bearings shredded, tear into it and let us know what you find.

 

[livedsm4g63]

Remove, reseal, and keep boosting. Why fix something when it isn't broke?

 

[92AWDHX40]

I found some debris in oil pan, kinda saw it coming though spun a rod uggg,

 

[themnkeygoesmoo]

Obviously something happened My question is could it be the bearings on my old turbo that I found? Is it possible to have my engine bearings that thrashed without any negative effects? I mean my car has been running great except for a boost leak from my intake manifold gasket.

 

[livedsm4g63]

I found some debris in oil pan, kinda saw it coming though spun a rod uggg,

Recently?

 

[livedsm4g63]

Obviously something happened My question is could it be the bearings on my old turbo that I found? Is it possible to have my engine bearings that thrashed without any negative effects? I mean my car has been running great except for a boost leak from my intake manifold gasket.

Honestly if your oil pressure is fine I wouldnt worry. You should of seen some of the things I found in my old dsms motor. You would have shit your pants, but the motor still ran fine.

 

[themnkeygoesmoo]

I should add I have removed my balance shaft and the flakes are non ferrous. It just seems like too much material. Something should be clearly wrong

 

[92AWDHX40]

after a engine rebuild recently being last year.

 

[livedsm4g63]

I should add I have removed my balance shaft and the flakes are non ferrous. It just seems like too much material. Something should be clearly wrong

Whats your oil pressure at?

 

[themnkeygoesmoo]

Whats your oil pressure at?

Still rocking the stock gauge. Yes I know, but its bout a quarter way at idle and almost pegged at cruising speeds which is expected since I have no balance shaft.

 

[livedsm4g63]

Well at idle where does your stock gauge read? It something to go off of, even though it is not accurate.

 

[themnkeygoesmoo]

About 1/4 way at idle

 

[Talyn]

Assuming you have a journal bearing turbo and not a BB, you can rule that out as turbo bearings, and even if it was a ball bearing they wouldn't wind up looking like that. Journal bearing turbos use a bronze or brass bushing. Those are probably from a rod or crank journal. Has the engine been rebuilt at all? Option wise either tear it down and try to find the source and replace just that bearing, full rebuild, or just keep driving it. All of them are a crapshoot really, although do you have the engine out of the car? Or did you take the pan off with it in the car(I honestly don't even know whether you can do that in these cars or not). If you have the engine pulled already you might as well go through and check the bearings. Might be able to check the mains with it still in the car.

 

[themnkeygoesmoo]

Engine is in the car. Just removed the pan to reseal it since the gasket was leaking. Engine has been rebuilt but that was 6 years and 100k miles ago. Now that I look at it you're right Talyn, the bearings on my old 16g are bronze so that rules out turbo bearings. I'm gonna take the rod caps off tomorrow and see what I find.

 

[danl]

Looks like aluminum casting flash from the cylinder head galleys. Throw the pan back on and call it a day.

 

[stolenracer]

By any chance are you using a fram oil filter. we had a situation like this a couple years on a dart 540 build where the engine builder used a fram filter and it completely broke down everything inside the filter when it was on the engine dyno. needless to say after 12k out of his pocket to rebuild he never uses fram filters again

 

[kchaazz]

Since its not turbo guts, and you deleted balance shafts when the motor was redone, ruling out balancer bearing chunks, was the head resurfaced? If so, and the head wasnt blown out with compressed air before reassembly, its possible the crap is from that, but those are some large chunks there. Let us know what you find when ya pull the bearing caps.
Also, dont use the paper gasket that comes with the engine kits on the oil pan for a 4g63, the pan was designed for use with RTV, and the gasket wont seal for long.

 

[Insomniac13]

When's the last time you took your oil pan off? That stuff could have been in there for a very long time from previous parts that you installed wearing in. I'd also check your oil filter to see if you can find additional debris that might be more conclusive (if it's somehow possible for different metal shavings to be more conclusive, ).
Finding stuff in your oil pan is never fun. I found a nice big chunk of a rod bearing in Dad's VR4's oil pan, good thing we bought it knowing it needed a rebuild

 

[gofast63]

Your going to have to change out your bearings. That sucks. I decided to reseal my oil pan last year, and found my balance shaft bearing in the oil pan. Weird thing was it ran great! No unusual noises or anything. I hope their just your rod bearings because you can change them out with eassss. Check for scratches on the crank though.

 

[keltalon]

Its certainly a ruined bearing. The only problem is that, that material/debris going to destroy your oil pump in short order in fact there is no way to get that debris completely out of your engine without a teardown and taking it to the machine shop for proper cleaning. If you keep driving it like that everything that depends on oil will suffer.

 

[wrencher]

Definitely looks like babbitt bearing material or the tin/lead backing of a rod/main /balance shaft bearing.
Seen that quite a few times over the years.

 

[gofast63]

Its certainly a ruined bearing. The only problem is that, that material/debris going to destroy your oil pump in short order in fact there is no way to get that debris completely out of your engine without a teardown and taking it to the machine shop for proper cleaning. If you keep driving it like that everything that depends on oil will suffer.

I agree, But if you are tight on money. Take your front case and valve cover off and inspect and clean as much as you can. Don't forget to check the play of the stub shaft on the oil pump. It's suppose to have just about no play. I'll attach a video of my worn out oil pump so you can compare. Also check the oil ports. Also do a couple of oil changes before you hit the road, so you can flush that crap out

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[themnkeygoesmoo]

Pictures tell the story.

Cylinder #1 Rod bearing

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Cylinder #2

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Cylinder #3

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Cylinder #4

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After seeing this I have no idea how my car was running so good this whole time. Looks like the engine is coming out

 

[stolenracer]

ouch hope your crank isnt bad after that