There has been a slow, gradual decline in my engine's oil pressure for a
while now--60 to 65 psi on start-up from cold dropping at running
temperatures to 30-35 psi at 3K rpm's and 10 psi or less at fast idle.
Yesterday I took the car for a long ride and after a while at 65-70 mph the
oil pressure actually dropped below 30 psi, so it's now officially below
the "10 psi/1K rpm's" threshold.
The engine has about 60K on it since complete rebuild so this morning I
decided to bite the bullet and drop the sump with the hope that I will find
nothing worse than a worn oil pump and/or main or rod bearings, either of
which I can repair/replace in time for some fall driving.
I first removed the spin-on oil filter and upon cutting it apart noticed a
bit of black plastic debris--irregularly shaped pieces, almost gravel-like
perhaps 1/16" to 1/8" in dimension on one end of the cartridge. The filter
medium itself was fairly clean though I did notice a bit more shiny
bearing-like material than I would have liked to have seen.
While draining the pan I heard a clunk or two from some solids going
through the drain hole and landing in a catch pan and on examination I
found a couple of larger pieces of the same kind of stuff--definitely some
black plastic material, not particularly hard as it would give when bitten.
The big surprise was what I found when I removed the pan--a lot more of the
same small stuff and four segments of a black plastic piece. In the
attached thumbnail you'll see that they form a semi-circle about 5" in
diameter and notice on the two pieces in the 9 o'clock position that there
appears to have been some gear-like teeth molded in. The small debris is
inside the semi-circle.
I'm going to remove the oil pump tomorrow but wonder if anyone has an idea
as to what this stuff could be?
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