ID metal shard

help identifying a metal shard

Started an oil change on an 2004 PD wagon (189K) and found this and a few metal bits on the end of the magnet on the drain plug.
Any idea what it could be? I pulled the valve cover and did not see anything obvious.
Side one:


Side two:


Side two is slightly concave. The skinny panhandle end has a beveled curve.
Thanks
Pete

I doubt it would have come from anywhere much above the crank level of the engine.
I'd want to pull the oil pan and fish for more pieces, and have a close look at the oil pump
assembly, tensioner and chain.
That beveled curve makes me wonder if it's part of the suction tube where it attaches to the pump itself....
maybe more likely from the baffle plate?

pull oil pan, you will find more. either way i would not even start her up until its fixed.

This is a piece of the top of a lifter that has died. Pull the valve cover and check them; my bet is that you will find at least 1 that has severe problems.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

PH

Powder Hound said:

This is a piece of the top of a lifter that has died. Pull the valve cover and check them; my bet is that you will find at least 1 that has severe problems.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

PH

Click to expand...

what PH said... looks like lifter shrapnel

3X on it being a piece of the top of a lifter... circular wear patterns are highly suggestive.

95% chance the head is coming off now! Sorry for your loss! Unless the valve is not worn and you caught the damage before much could happen. new lifters and probably a cam grind is possibly in your future.
post pictures of what you find under the valve cover please. i like to collect auto gore!

I opened the valve cover and saw no damage, as best as I could tell, to the lifters and the camshaft. I then dropped the oil pan and found one other small piece but did not see anything out of the ordinary from the underside. Nothing in the pump intake or broken from below.
Hunch is that maybe the original owner did have a head or lifter problem and did not convey that to me when purchased 4 years ago. I am having a second set of eyes come over before I seal it up to make sure everything looks normal to them and to examine lifter and cam wear.
Sorry no gore! Was relieved to not find anything but also confused on where it could have come from or what I may be missing.

This is my best photo of possible cam wear -

after writing the last post I started thinking:

I bought the car from the original owner in '15 and he handed over all his records that included every oil change. And I reviewed that to see if any engine work had occurred last weekend when I found the metal shard. There was nothing except glow pugs, TB and little stuff.

I just went back and searched my gmail and found the conversation from when I inquired about the craigslist listing. And found a snippet where he said that he did not have the paperwork available but the entire camshaft and lifters had been replaced by a dealership the year before and that there was a one year warranty.

So there had been some work done on it -- and it appears that it wasn't done well.

I dodged a bullet.

Naw. There was a basically-zero chance of that being sucked up through the screen and causing trouble. You wouldn't BELIEVE what I've found in the bottom of oil pans before....

the only things that can get sucked up in the oil when running is small pixie dust to tiny shredings like glitter or cookie crumbs at most, that all gets trapped in the oil filter anyways, the ONLY thing that gets hurt when stuff gets sucked up (other than when the filter fails) is the oil pump, then you have low oil pressure and then things die.

point is, it could be from past work. check your oil pressure cold and warm at various RPM's with a gauge, if it looks good, then motor on, if oil pressure is low then some debris has worn down the pump.

stuff that big is so heavy in the oil that it falls to the bottom and gets trapped in the baffles.
I would (if i was in your position) filter your oil you drain out. Dilute it with gas after drained and strain it though a coffee filter, check for glitter in the oil at the bottom of the drain pan. Magnet will tell if aluminum or iron. and use a can opener (not a saw) to open the seam up on your oil filter and check in between the pleats for debris.
If the finest pixy dust is noticeable, well you're probably fine and many motors have that all the time. larger sand grain sized bits or larger is subject to scrutiny, larger and you have issues. take notes and pictures and compare them to the next oil change you do. if it gets worse or the same, then its constant wear vs a just now issue.