HELP, found a small piece of steel in my oil pan
 

i pulled my motor out this weekend to replace the rear main seal. when i drained the oil i found a small piece of steel. it measures around a 32nd thick, 3/16" wide and about an 1/2" long. i has a slight curve to it. attached is a picture of it. what could it be?

Kinda looks like a piece of bearing to me.

--nathan

ouch!
 

Oh man! That can't be good. Was your motor running & sounding ok before you pulled it? I feel for ya man...

Yeah I agree with others, time to pull the pan and check bearings. I've never seen a piece of bearing come out like that without spinning one. Your oil pressue should be lower and some new noise coming from bottom end, Good luck!
Bill

motor sounded just fine. i had it started just before i pulled it. not only that it only has maybe 400 miles on it and has never been over 5500 rpm. the oil pressure is just fine too.

Man, I don't have any idea how a bearing could break and come out like that. I'm sure anything is possible, but damn. that sucks

Kinda looks like a piece of cam bearing to me. Its possible that the bearing was broken if/when it wasn't installed straight/correctly.

thats definitely a piece of a bearing. its curve isnt that great though so i would guess a peice of a main cap because a main journal baring measures about 2 to 2.5" across. a cam bearing is only a bout 1.75" across. if your engine is still pulled out or even if its not, find and fix the problem before you start it up a again! let us know what you find man.

You know, i think Jeff is right, that must be a cam bearing, you said it was really thin right? Main bearings are at least 1/16th thick, cam bearings are a bit thinner though. And it's awefully narrow. I'm gonna put my money on a cam bearing. You might pull the cam and see if you see any evidence of a bearing breaking and tearing up a cam journal.

that sucks man!!=*(
 

my money is on the cam bearing aswell looks thinner then a mian bearing
but althought doesn't have the bend like a cam bearing does
so maybe its a main bearing but defently a bearing from somewhere

GOOD LUCK !!

Can you take a picture of that piece again with a ruler in the frame? That will give some scale.

J

Ya that looks like a piece of a bearing to me. I would definately go through the motor to find out what it is and whats wrong before going much further. I just finished tearing apart my 302 to find out that the new cam i had put in was too soft and the coating started flaking off and got sucked into the oil pump. It killed the motor so now im going with a 460.

Just because the thing isn't curved like a cam bearing doesn't mean anything. It got the crap torn out of it because it's not all there, it probably got bent. If it's as thin as you say, it's a cam bearing, that's the only bearing that's that thin, plus it'd be really easy to screw up installing a cam bearing, not so easy to screw up installing a main bearing or rod bearing, also, it'd be a lot more difficult to have a piece of a main or rod bearing come out, all of the mains are surrounded by parts of the crank that stick out. A cam bearing if it were installed slightly wrong could work it's way out and catch on a lobe, and rip the **** out of it and leave a piece in the pan. I'll put a thousand dollars on a cam bearing right now. Any takers?

QuantumMotorsports,

I'll take that bet!! See 92ufogt's new post....

--nathan