Turboflyer

I thought I would try and contribute to the recent interest in the analysis of why engine parts wear. Specifically why the tensioner pads are going and are possibly the culprit in catastrophic engine failures. From what Ray has said significant wear at 30K and almost gone at 70K should have us all on the edge of our seats, especially considering there is no easy way to inspect these parts. If it were a part we could get at and change on a periodic schedule that would be great. But as Ray has indicated no such luck. So the question rest on how do we discover when and if we are on the edge of pending doom.
After speaking with oil analysis folks it would appear that the substance we seak to find is not at this time one that is detectable since it is of unknown composition most likely synthetic in make up. As an aside if any one is willing to send me one of there worn and discarded tensioners I will make every effort to determine what it is made of.
OK on the the problem. Of course if during and oil analysis a spike in the aluminum tensioner pad holder is found then that would be a real indicator of imminent danger. How long can the part hold up with out the pad, maybe Ray knows. How long after the oil change and analysis do we have be fore tear down is needed? Who knows.
Sometimes particulate matter in the oil is a clue. It can be seen in the incoming side of the filter pleat on visual inspection. That is if the particles are large enough to be seen. I have tried to show my filters from the first to last oil change from left to right. As you can see nothing to see. The respective mileage on each oil change from left to right was: 9953/6973/5698/5976/7000/7600/8181/9819/2548 and 2356. Aside from the amount of residual oil nothing jumps right out and grabs you.
My next test will be to fuel wash each filter and place the contents in individual containers hoping to produce something that can be analyzed.

Turboflyer

Also here is what your fuel filter may look like in 60K. That is using Chevron not Arco. Pretty tough case and substantial element.

Turboflyer

Sorry, that was Jake Raby. How I got Ray out of that is well you know and old thing.

Macster

as is in oil and gasoline. The guide is basically plastic and this is mostly made out of what's left over after the more volatile stuff is turned into gas, kerosene, or diesel fuel.

The wear particles shed are probably so fine they do not get caught in the oil filter. Larger pieces are probably rare, but it never hurts to check oil filter housing for any signs of debris. Some debris though may be a false alarm. Or there may be no more debris until there's a failure.

When you get oil to send out for analysis the best place to take it from is the oil filter housing, ideally with engine recently run until hot so oil throughly mixed up. It does tend to stratify when it stops flowing.

Oil analysis done at big rig truck stops has the tech remove the oil filter housing and pour the oil out into a sample container. The anlysis is done on site (an automated machine) and if the results indicate the oil ok the old filter tossed, a new filter installed, the housing refilled with fresh oil, and buttoned up.

Or the oil/filter is changed.

My observation is about 1/2 the truckers use an oil analysis the other half just change the oil every so many days given they usually drive about the same number of milesr per day (500 to 1000 miles), per month (15,000 to 30,000 miles), per year (180,000 to 360,000 miles). Depends if there is just one driver, or two. With two drivers the truck hardly ever stops moving except to fuel, load, or unload or get serviced.

Sincerely,

Macster.

Renaud Bizet

I just changed the oil on my car after 7,000 miles and found some shavings in the oil filter. The shavings are olive green, not metallic and very flexible (plastic/rubber like). My car is a 2000 986S with close to 50k miles on it and was always perfectly maintained.
Any idea as to what those shavings could be? It is my daily driver and I would hope to put another 70k miles before planning a rebuild.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Renaud.

jmatta

With regard to filtering, I've recently purchased (but not installed) Jake and Charles' billet oil filter adapter. According to his recommendations, the factory filter does not do an adequate job and this adapter allows you to use a higher grade filter. I will install when my car comes out in spring and change out the brand new Mobil 1 I put in this fall; recent remarks on Mobil 1 have me thinking something better grade. My '02 S has 15k miles on it and I'd like to keep it in one piece.

Turboflyer

Green and flexible. I would only be guessing if I said some type of sealant that was used in excess. Has any work been done on the car? Also what is the part number and cost of that billet oil filter adapter?
Before you change oils without and data I would recommend doing a goggle on oil comparisons. There are always trade offs. A lot of oils have been reformulated. Not all. You need to see what is most important to you in how it performs.

Macster

have you for the rest of us or have you received?

Absent any oil named as an alternative how can any comparison be made?

I for one promise not to get into an oil war. I would just like to know of the alternatives so I can look them over and make up my own mind.

Sincerely,

Macster.

Macster

I'm leaning towards the shavings being from a spark tube o-ring. Might have been from some engine work -- spark plugs changed maybe a leaking spark plug tube fixed either recently or long ago -- that resulted in some fragment of a torn or broken o-ring ending up in engine. The stuff is soft enough some pieces might make it through the oil scavenge pump nearly intact if small enough to begin with.

Not unusal for an engine to have some debris inside from less than perfect assembly hygiene and these debris can appear at any oil change. Even upon teardown one can find "stuff" in the oil sump or other nooks and crannies with this stuff having been in engine since day 0.

Sincerely,

Macster.

Renaud Bizet

Thanks for the feedback.
It is malleable and looks like sealant/gasket. I have not done any engine work. I obviously changed the plugs at 30k and now at close to 50k will do so soon. There are no leaks around the engine block nor close to the spark plugs. Also my AOS is original but I don't think there is any gasket with the light olive green color.

Turboflyer

I have washed 3 of the filters with no spectacular results and certainly not any wear near lab results. The most particulate matter was on the first with minor aluminum grains and a few tiny flakes. Some amounts of ferrous metal, mostly fine powder, no chunks or flakes and no visible non metallic stuff. This was with 9,953 miles. At the other end of the time line the last oil change was on the engine with 66,104 mile and the oil having 2,356. Same particles as the first but about one fourth the amount. Now the interesting find. When I did the filter that had 9,819 miles on it and the engine at 61,200 mikes I found a small amount of a material that could be the cam chain tensioner pads or some other non metallic composition. Not flexible and somewhat brown in color. Once I can get a hold of a tensioner I will be more able to figure out what it might be. Again this was not present in the first oil filter with 9,953 miles on the engine.

Turboflyer

Forgot to let every one know. The stock filter element measures out to be 1.992 square feet of filtering media.

Macster

just general trash, debris. Ferrous debris large and small is common in an iron block. Even an iron engine can shed aluminum cause of course the pistons are aluminum.

Aluminum of course is more common in an all aluminum engine. There can be some iron/ferrous material since there are quite a few ferrous parts in even an aluminum engine.

If the engine assembled with assembly lube this can certainly discolor the oil and darken the filter but its presence is expected.

Larger pieces are shed as the engine runs. Cast and machined surfaces shed alot of tiny particles. It is not wear so much as just loose material coming away from vibration, the consderable violence of the oil.

There will also be some finer material. This is knocked loose at the bearing interfaces like the piston/rings/cylinders, the camshaft lobes and lifters and chains and sprockets and of course cam chain guides/tensioners.

Subsequent oil changes will find the amount of material decreasing. At some point it will level off and remain level for a long time as in normal operation the engine experiences very very little wear and sheds little material due to wear. All surfaces of the engine are of course subject to corrosion and this will constantly cause the engine's internal surfaces to shed debris.

I do not find it at all troubling that you have found some what I think are pieces of chain guides. These can appear at any time and are to be expected. Some are a dark amber/carmel color some are a much darker, almost black color. The chains run against these and they have a large surface area. It would not surprise me that some edges -- leading or trailing edge of the guides -- would shed some material from being struck the chain if on the leading edge and from the chain dragging at the trailing edge.

What you found only highlights the importance of at least one early oil/filter service, certainly near the end of the break in period and before one reaches the end of the break in period and unleashes the engine.

Makes no sense to me to follow a break in period and then hammer on engine with that dirty oil and possibly partially or even completely plugged thus allowing this dirty oil to bypass the filter and be fed directly to the engine's critical bearing interfaces.

Sincerely,

Macster.

Renaud Bizet

Here is a picture

http://www.Upntag.com/pictures/86cf6...83493b210d.jpg

Macster

facing material.

When engine assembled some internal mating surfaces treated to a bead of sealant. I know from experience with assembling other engines and other equipment (machine tools) this bead if too small can leak and if too large will see some material squeezed out.

If one can access this and remove if that's one thing. If one can't reach it or doesn't take the time it will remain until it finally from age and exposure to oil possibly being slung against it will see the portion that extends out from the mating faces of the assembled parts break loose and work its way to the engine oil sump, usually the oil sump. In some engines the trash can gather in the valley between the cylinder banks of a V engine or even under the valve covers. Modern engines are designed to avoid areas where oil can pool/puddle/collect but there are areas where the flow of oil is low enough that it may not dislodge debris that ends up in those areas.

During factory assembly I can see an assembler being overzealous with the sealant and having some excess squeezed out. I'm pretty sure an engine assembler that assembles an engine that leaks from its internal oil or coolant passages (tested usually with compressed air) is going to get a more negative review than one who uses a bit more sealer during assembly. And chances are there's no one to observe (inspect) the assembly to note some sealer has been squeezed out. The quality of the job is based primarily upon the tests the engine goes through as it makes it way through the factory and beyond.

For beyond I would expect for any returned engine to note its time of manufacture and thus know which assembler played what role in its assembly and keep tabs to what end one can only imagine...

Anyhow, soft and pliable and you're sure all spark plug o-rings came out intact and all new ones went in intact and must be performing their job since there are no signs of any oil leaking from the spark plug tubes, then I'm going to have go with sealer material that got squeezed out during assembly.

Absent any leaks, any untoward engine behavior that might point to a failing AOS (I had at one point mentioned the AOS has a diaphram that is coated on one or both sides with a pliable rubber like coating that if this diaphram failing can be shed in small pieces which if so would at some point result in symptoms that point to of course a failing AOS) then the debris is harmless trash the engine expels over time.

To really confirm this would require considerable expensive engine diassembly (and this would require engine removal) and at the end you have spent a considerably fraction of having a new engine installed, or this engine rebuilt by a qualified engine rebuilder or the act of diassembly and reassembly has done more harm than good.

One course of action you can take if you're so inclined:

Clean out oil filter filter housing, replace filter with new, and refill housing/new filter with some fresh oil.

Might even be worth draining the oil from the sump too just to drain out any loose debris that might next engine start end up in filter housing and spoil the "test".

Install filter housing/new filter and of course if you drained oil sump refill engine with the proper amount and type of oil, then run engine a while.

Idle it for say 15 minutes. Stay close to ignition key. Any signs of engine noises out of the ordinary shut 'er down quick and make arrangements to get car flat bedded to dealer service for diagnosis and repair.

But absent any signs or noises of trouble, let engine idle until engine warmed up some. You can even race engine RPMs up to several thousand briefly as long as engine still exhibiting no signs of any distress.

Then remove oil filter housing and check for any debris. If none, reinstall housing (you can use a new filter... cost is cheap comparatively speaking) and run engine some more.

More than just idling now. Drive car. Nothing brutal just normal driving. Stay attuned to engine and you know the rest.

But barring that drive car for an hour or so. Or several hours. A week's worth. Up to you.

Remove oil filter housing and check for any debris. If none present, it is just as I said above.

If more present, and engine hasn't developed any troubling symptoms yet, you may (may) have an early warning of pending serious trouble.

But in this case what to do about it I'm not sure what I can advise.

Sincerely,

Macster.