chunks of metal found in oil pan

[grasshopper]

I took off my oil pan,,was changing rear main seal,and decided to have a look. I found two chunks of metal.They look like they might be part of the housing or piston or crank or something. In other words they are not shreads or flakes of metal.I cant figure out what they would be from ?? The engine worked great before i did all this. I looked around in the block the best i could and have not seen anything unusual. The only thing i can think of is that i replaced the mechanical fuel pump once years ago,but cant remember any broken pieces when the old one came out. I'm kind of freaked out about this. Any thoughts ?

[4uall]

A picture may assist us in determining the origin of the pieces

[baltobernie]

If it's a chunk of cast aluminum, it may be a piece of a broken oil pickup. They chances go way up if you have a dent on the front edge of the oil pan, and if the piece resembles a portion of a tube.

A photo would help.

This is what the pump looks like, and they usually fracture in the "neck".
http://www.autoricambi.us/product/LU6-4 ... --1976-78/

[grasshopper]

i dont think its part of the oil pickup. I wish i knew how to up load a pic to this website,,pic is on my cell phone. There are three pieces,,,two pieces belong together,,,they look like part of a radius,,,i was thinking that it might be the bottom of a piston,but i cant see any problems . The other piece looks like it could be a piece of the housing casting,but again,,i cant see any problems at all. I put a magnet on these pieces,,,,the two pieces that belong together seem to be perhaps aluminium,,magnet does not stick to them,,,the other piece (looks kind of greenish) sticks to the magnet very strongly...any more thoughts?

[baltobernie]

There are a lot of Spiders running around with broken pickups. As installed, the oil entrance is very close to the bottom of the pan, so if the pickup breaks per my earlier post, the entry point merely moves upward by an inch or three (plus you lose the screen filter). The large part of the pickup gets stuck somewhere in the baffling. Only when running at high revs or around a long corner will the pump experience repeated starvation. Does your oil gauge or light come on around a long bend?

Send your cell phone photo to your e-mail account, upload it to a photo hosting site (Photobucket, Snapfish, etc.), then follow the directions located elsewhere on Spider.com titled "how to post photos".

I can't imagine your debris being an engine rotating part, but stranger things have been found in oil pans.

[wizard124]

When I dropped my oil pan, I found this (no not the dime ):


Ran good before, so I buttoned it up. Still runs good
I posted this picture some months age but no one offered up any answers.

[baltobernie]

That is wild! Since something that size can't fit thru a galley, I'd guess a scrap inadvertently left behind when a PO was repairing the oil pan. In order to pound out any dents, most of the time the windage/baffle tray needs to be cut loose and subsequently repaired once the dents are fixed. Just my $0.02 (you still have $0.08 left )