Hey everyone. I S65 swapped a 1 series last winter and when I did I did rod bearings. 52k miles engine, peace of mind. Then a couple weeks ago, with about 800 miles on them blew an oil cooler line on track. I got it stopped and shut off pretty quick but when I went to fix the cooler line there was very little oil left in the engine, maybe 1-1.5L. I decided to cut open the oil filter for kicks and saw some sparkles, not that bad but enough to worry me:
There were no sparkles in the oil, or in the pan. I did notice a few similar looking specks here and there around the inside of the oil pan gasket... makes it super easy to see them since it's black. I assume there are more floating around.
So I figured the worst... rod bearings shot, welded to the crank, motor shot. So I tore the whole thing apart again to see the damage and... there was none. Very slight scoring in the bearings that I can't even feel with a finger nail but other than that they look like brand new BE bearings:
Some scoring near the edge:
When I pulled the third bearing from the front, cyl 2 I think? The bearing stayed on the crank instead of the cap, I figured this was game over but it popped right off, the bearing surface looked fine, and so did the crank but I noticed the back of the bearing was a little black:
Bearing on the left:
Back side of bearing and cap:
The other bearings all looked pretty much exactly the same, crank was oily and smooth across the board.
The last thing I noticed was some heat discoloring on the pump pick-up mounting plate. Not sure what's up with this, I don't think it was like that before. Car was mostly tracked for the last few hundred miles so maybe just a hot oil thing?
So anyway, here's some questions for the hive mind here:
- Do the bearings look good? Worried about the minor scoring?
- Does the "sticky" bearing look ok? Obviously it didn't spin but I'm not sure why it would be black like that. Maybe this one is the source of my metal?
- Is it kosher to just reinstall the same bearings?
- Any ideas on the pick-up discoloration?
- Any other ideas where the metal came from? This is the first filter after fitting a new oil cooler, maybe it's that?
- Any other words of wisdom? Plenty of people here smarter than me...
Thanks!