I'm a frequent lurker on BITOG but thought this question would best be answered here. What is made of copper in a slant six? I just cut open my oil filter and between the pleats were little flakes of copper. There were little chinks of "black sand" that I assume is just carbon crud. But there was a whole lot of copper.

I don't want to spend a lot of $$$ on oil analysis for this engine, as its past is somewhat sketchy. Basically, it's a forklift motor that saw infrequent oil changes, ran for a few minutes at a time and then got shut off, and generally was abused. When I changed the head gasket 3 months ago the cylinders looked pretty good considering. I vatted the head to get rid of copious amounts of carbon while I was in there.

So, could this be bearing material? There's no knocking of any kind on this engine.

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If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

Tri-metal bearings are about the only source of copper flakes I can think of.

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Joshua

Maybe a non plastic distributor gear.

Sure it's copper?

The metal in engines tends to get stained a copperish color from oil...........

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Hmmmm... it isn't magnetic, but you may be onto something. :shrug:
I am guessing from the lack of maintenance it may very well not be copper. The oil pressure is very good and the rods or mains are not even lightly tapping (using a stethoscope). All I can hear is rocker arm chatter.

I am gonna toss in a quart of Marvel Mystery Oil and change the oil again in about 40 hours to see what comes out. I sure hope it isn't bearings because this thing is a real PITA to work on!

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If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.