Grains in oil pan

Hi all, looking for some opinion.

 

05lgt with 150k.

 

Just did my 3k oil change and noticed some grains in the bottom of my oil pan. Some are almost sand like, one is white looking. They do not cling to the magnet. Any ideas what this could mean? Previos owner had turbo and valve replacement 30k ago.

Sounds like you have cat material in your oil, still have factory up pipe?

Sti up. How would they get into the oil anyway? When BNR rebuilt my turbo last month they did mention the old seal was on the way out.

I've seen cars with timing over-lap suck in peices of cat, just a thought.. bearing material is non magnetic too

Was your oil drain pan perfectly clean. I know mine collects all kinds of stuff just sitting on the shelve a few months.

 

Bearing material will give you a metallic sheen to the oil.

 

Mike

Yeah 'twas a brand new pan. I did empty the filter into there, maybe it came out of that. Bearing residue would not be good news.

I think your fine, under the car is not very clean, you may have bumped something that jarred some crap lose.

I think your fine, under the car is not very clean, you may have bumped something that jarred some crap lose.

 

That makes sense actually, I also noticed the oil hitting the undertray before going into the pan - it could have washed some silt down with it.

So, it's been said on this forum that if the turbo blows and the car is still driven, the turbo bearing material gets circulated throughout the engine via the oil. As this happens the material finds its way into the rest of the engine's bearings. If you replace the turbo and still find yourself with debris in the oil there's a chance the engine main bearings were damaged from the first turbo blow.... sometimes it can take a few thousand miles to rear its ugly head.

 

Being 30k mile ago for you, it's not as likely as a scenario BUT it's food for thought. There aren't too many reasons how debris can end up in the oil.... think about it. Only oil and engine components touch the oil and pan on the inside.

 

Cat material is not even applicable here since the cats are on the exhaust side and do not mix with the air the engine ingests. If your car ingested something via the intake, it would perform a grammy-winning salsa dance with fuel, air, and spark, and likely get blown out the exhaust ports in the head and out to the turbo and exhaust- NOT IN THE OIL. The only way the debris could end up in the oil is if the debris after/during combustion becomes so small that it blows past the piston rings and into the crankcase- if that were to happen you probably have bigger problems to deal with.

 

There's usually a good amount of debris on the top of the undertray, and that seems like a more likely scenario if everything else seems fine.