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Changed my oil today. 2005 C2S with about 80000 miles. Been using DT40 for a few years. About 3300 miles (1.5 years; car was laid up about a year) on this oil change. Opened the oil filter case to inspect the oil filter medium. Saw a lot of fine black (oil soaked, of course) powder in the creases of the filter medium. More than I've seen in the past. I've attached two pics here.
What do you think? Source? Cause for alarm? Needs immediate diagnosis/correction?
Changed my oil today. 2005 C2S with about 80000 miles. Been using DT40 for a few years. Opened the oil filter case to inspect the oil filter medium. Saw a lot of fine black (oil soaked, of course) powder in the creases of the filter medium. More than I've seen in the past. I've attached two pics here.
What do you think? Source? Cause for alarm? Needs immediate diagnosis/correction?
ferrous or non ferrous? Can you run a magnet to check?...
Take the large collection of it from that one pleat out and try to clean it up - maybe brake cleanser and a coffee filter. Need to determine if it's finely ground metal or plastic as it actually looks like mud, like maybe a dirt dobber got in through an open exhaust valve and made a mud next in the motor during the year and a half layup.
...maybe a dirt dobber got in through an open exhaust valve and made a mud next...
That's an interesting theory because we definitely have those critters around here and coincidentally the color of my debris is freakishly close to their mud houses.
Here's what I did. I used a wash bottle with lacquer thinner and washed about 1/2 the medium's debris into a clean glass container. Decanted it once. Washed it again. Decanted it. Let the solvent evaporate a little bit and scooped a couple of screwdriver tip's worth onto a clean paper towel. It was still a little wet as you can see by the staining on the paper towel. Picture is attached. The clumps are easily pulverized. The color is brown-reddish-brown.
PS: I think I'll get the Durametric out and measure the cam (angle) deviations...
That's an interesting theory because we definitely have those critters around here and coincidentally the color of my debris is freakishly close to their mud houses.
Here's what I did. I used a wash bottle with lacquer thinner and washed about 1/2 the medium's debris into a clean glass container. Decanted it once. Washed it again. Decanted it. Let the solvent evaporate a little bit and scooped a couple of screwdriver tip's worth onto a clean paper towel. It was still a little wet as you can see by the staining on the paper towel. Picture is attached. The clumps are easily pulverized. The color is brown-reddish-brown.
PS: I think I'll get the Durametric out and measure the cam (angle) deviations...
It's just some espresso grounds in there. You're ok.
That's an interesting theory because we definitely have those critters around here and coincidentally the color of my debris is freakishly close to their mud houses.
Here's what I did. I used a wash bottle with lacquer thinner and washed about 1/2 the medium's debris into a clean glass container. Decanted it once. Washed it again. Decanted it. Let the solvent evaporate a little bit and scooped a couple of screwdriver tip's worth onto a clean paper towel. It was still a little wet as you can see by the staining on the paper towel. Picture is attached. The clumps are easily pulverized. The color is brown-reddish-brown.
PS: I think I'll get the Durametric out and measure the cam (angle) deviations...
Are any of those pieces hard like plastic or are they mushy like mud? Hard plastic is tensioner guide material. Soft like mud, might actually be mud.
Are any of those pieces hard like plastic or are they mushy like mud? Hard plastic is tensioner guide material. Soft like mud, might actually be mud.
Every filter debris chunk I've smushed was easily reduce to mixed-coarse-fine powder. I found a mud dauber egg jobber in my garage and took a sample and pulverized it in the same way as the filter debris. It's the sample with the blue arrow. They look pretty similar.
Could dauber egg house material gotten passed the rings and into the oil system?
After warm-up:
Camshaft deviation, bank 1 -0.9844
Camshaft deviation, bank 2 -0.4219
Rock steady, no jumping around at idle nor 2700 RPM.
I think it might really be dirt. Check the airbox for a nest, both above and below the filter. If your mechanic by chance kept some of the oil when he found the dirt in the filter, send that off to Blackstone and see what they find in it. If it's actually dirt, should have high silicon numbers.
I think it might really be dirt. Check the airbox for a nest, both above and below the filter. If your mechanic by chance kept some of the oil when he found the dirt in the filter, send that off to Blackstone and see what they find in it. If it's actually dirt, should have high silicon numbers.
Thanks Pete for the suggestions.
I did save the oil and have ordered the sample kit from Blackstone. I opened the airbox and found no dauber egg jobbers nor hint of focused dirt area on the filter.
I'll wait on the used oil analysis before calling this spike in powdery oil filter debris a mystery...
I agree - I should be punished for leaving it up on jacks for that long...
As I've thought about this more, I can think of a couple of maintenance actions I took that might play into this:
1) Last November (~1600 miles ago) I did the coils and plugs - I guess I could have knocked something loose. The plugs really didn't look that bad though.
2) Just before this oil change (~450 miles ago), I put in a bottle of Techron fuel system cleaner, when I filled the tank. I've done this before and never had a spike in debris. 80% of the time I buy "top tier" gasoline so I wouldn't have expected that much build-up anyway.
02-07-2020, 10:16 PM
Found fine black powder in oil filter medium
