Nasty piece of metal on engine oil drainage

[dan_s]

Found this piece of steel attached to the engine oil drain plug magnet. ~1000km ago I replaced the camshaft and tappets. The motor runs great. Drained oil looks clean with no metal flakes.
From distributor/camshaft gear?

[Chuck in Indiana]

I wouldn't think so, but I'm clueless as to what it is..

[raul]

Could it have been lodged somewhere and only just now moved around enough to catch on the magnet?  As black as it is, it appears to me to have been in there a while through a lot of heat cycles.

[acogoff]

    Looks like a piece of schrapnel. Rocket attack on the oil bottling facility gets my vote.

[kevdog3019]

Looks like one of Luigi's long fingernails to me.  :P
K

[sonicboom]

Almost looks like a peeling from bearing contact area or bearing peel itself. It would be off a large one, not anything small. Turning black it was cooked and not by oil heat cycles that was cooked by friction.

First impression.

[bobdar]

It would be about 6 mm in diameter if it started out as circular.

[Triple Jim]

It looks like a typical lathe or milling machine chip.  I wonder if it was stuck on something when the engine was originally assembled and finally fell off, or something similar.

[dan_s]

I'd really like to blame Luigi but the last person to drop the sump was me. The new cam was a regrind with some king of black coating. could be a gear tooth. Will have to open things to know more.

[Yeahoo Whoyah]

Which model and year Moto Guzzi are we talking about here?

[dan_s]

1980 LM 2. Reground cam to B10 spec.

[ItsForrest]

My guess would be lathe or milling chips as suggested previously. I have found the same in a Guzzi engine.

When I bought bought my last new Guzzi, a 96 Sport 1100, one of the guys at Moto International suggested I check things out carefully when I did my first valve adjust. Sure enough, I found significant amounts of metal chips left over from manufacturing inside the oil passages to the valve gear.

It would not surprise me in the slightest if that was hiding in a corner of the engine since birth and you somehow dislodged it when doing the cam work.

[dan_s]

This photo is from the guzzipower.com website

[Wayne Orwig]

Have you looked at the cam lobes up through the sump?
It is magnetic, right?

[Chuck in Indiana]

My guess would be lathe or milling chips as suggested previously. I have found the same in a Guzzi engine.

When I bought bought my last new Guzzi, a 96 Sport 1100, one of the guys at Moto International suggested I check things out carefully when I did my first valve adjust. Sure enough, I found significant amounts of metal chips left over from manufacturing inside the oil passages to the valve gear.

It would not surprise me in the slightest if that was hiding in a corner of the engine since birth and you somehow dislodged it when doing the cam work.

I've made a few chips in my day.  ;D For a machined chip to look like this, it needs a long uninterrupted stroke like a shaper. I'm sure there's no manufacturing machining operation on Guzzis that use one. Oh, you could make something like this on a lathe, but without a chip breaker on the tool it would just wind around the chuck and make a mess. Not likely, IMHO.

[Triple Jim]

I was really thinking of something like a large end mill.  A fairly heavy cut with a 1" cutter could make a chip something like that, but I'm not sure what piece of steel in a Guzzi engine would be big enough for a machining operation like that.

Edit:  Maybe a rough cut on the crankshaft, and a chip got stuck in it?  Agreed that it sounds unlikely, but I'm not sure the real answer will sound very likely either.   :)

[Rough Edge racing]

  Hmm The sump cover if off?  take a close look inside with a bright light.

[lucky phil]

Or it's an unrelated foreign object off the garage floor or caught in a rag you used when you had the engine apart for the cam and lifter replacement?
Seems the more likely
Ciao

[dan_s]

I haven't gotten to looking inside, tired of fixing things (although small things). I  just want to ride now, fortunately I have another bike.
I'll post to write what I found.

[jacksonracingcomau]

    Looks like a piece of schrapnel. Rocket attack on the oil bottling facility gets my vote.

I reckon that is nearly brilliant guess, here's mine

The strap under the cap on the oil bottle, like what wraps around wine corks .

A/ there're still metal caps on oil containers in Israel
2/ Bottle of wine was opened during the oil fill procedure

Either way it didn't come from the engine, it got put there, good use of magnet

[dan_s]

I reckon that is nearly brilliant guess, here's mine

The strap under the cap on the oil bottle, like what wraps around wine corks .

A/ there're still metal caps on oil containers in Israel

Israel is not THAT exotic

[mtiberio]

From breather box. Rusts and flakes

[dguzzi]

Possibly an outer seal piece? Did you find any seals that were toasted? Odd that it would be in the sump unless as suggested a manufacturing 'error'.

[dan_s]

Update. The distributor and cam gear were fine. Took off sump to find a couple of dozens of black steel flakes lying on the bottom, about 1mm each. Not a pretty sight. I couldn't leave it at that. Further on, the friction areas on the rockers seemed to have almost lost their hardened layer.


I gave the rockers for filling with metal powder and regrinding and one valve for grinding the tip of the stem. Then polished the friction areas with 1500 grade sand paper.



The tappets, just ~1500 km's old, had unacceptable pitting on the cam contact area. That would explain the tiny steel flakes but not the big ugly one. I bought the tappets from Stein_Dinse on 4.2013. I sent them the photos and spoke with customer service there, their person told me he knew about issues with that certain make of tappets and sent me four replacement items which, he claimed, should be fine. The replacement tappets were sent free of charge.



I didn't pull the cam out but looking from the tappet channels, the lobes look unharmed.



I didn't open the timing cover since i can't think of something there that could produce such flakes (the timing chain?)
So now everything is back in place. I even bothered to smear molykote G-N assembly paste on the tappets surfaces.
Spun the engine with the starter, with no fuel and the spark plugs out.

A question: Before I start the motor, does anyone have any advice on camshaft/tappets running in?

[normzone]

Fascinating. I can't help with your question, but I want to thank you for the detailed images and post. You might have noticed that I'm pursuing an unexplained sound in my engine, and your work here gives me confidence in the solveability of the matter.

[dan_s]

Fascinating. I can't help with your question, but I want to thank you for the detailed images and post. You might have noticed that I'm pursuing an unexplained sound in my engine, and your work here gives me confidence in the solveability of the matter.

Glad it helps.

[Triple Jim]

The general advice usually given to break in new automotive cam/lifters is coat with assembly lube, start, and immediately get to around 3,000 rpm.  Then vary the speed between 1,500 and 3,000 for 20 minutes or so.  Most important is to avoid slow running, including extended cranking during starting.

[Tobit]

Fwiw, when I pulled the lifters out of my LeMans IV in '87 (was having other work done) they were worse off than yours.  Probably had around 10,000 miles on them.  The camshaft looked fine.

Tobit

[Wayne Orwig]

A question: Before I start the motor, does anyone have any advice on camshaft/tappets running in?

Most cam makers recommend initial run in with a high level of ZDDP in the oil.
No idea if it really helps, but it can't hurt to add some.

Still curious where that big bit came from.

[Uzidzit]

it is a chip from machining, off something,  probably been hiding out since new.  I would not loose much sleep over it,  get a bottle of crane cams assy lube to dose the followers on the start up the stuff for non rollers, it works well.  cranes are soft cams and need careful break in, high zinc oils will not hurt anything in your bike it does not have o2 sensors, or a cat,  and those are what zinc kills quickly