Debris in filter, rebuild recently

Basically to put our minds to rest hopefully. I dropped the oil today to do oil change etc, I cut the filter open to find some brown fragments in the oil filter, these would appear to be plastic and I also found a few fragments of metal, these stick to the magnet that I tried, they look to have machining marks on them IE looks grooved not a plain piece of metal. Now the car had a rebuild around 3000 miles ago, is this just a case of things settling in, metal fragments are from the machine work that took place, where & what would cause the brown plastic ? I didn't expect to find anything when cutting the filter open but unfortunately not the case. I'm debating removing the sump for a look but thinking having spent serious coin on a rebuild we shouldn't really have to be worrying about things after 3000 miles.

What was done on the rebuild? Any photos of the fragments? MC

It had more or less everything except new cylinders & pistons on the bottom end. The existing cylinders were used but were fitted with retaining rings to stop the cylinders going oval I assume. New larger version IMS also. The small metal fragments are still on the magnet and the brown fragments I can scrape off the filter.

Who did the rebuild? I'm guessing the brown plastic stuff maybe (excess) sealant that's possibly come off where it's sealed. :dont know:

The brown plastic doesn't feel like sealant I'd expect that to be more of a flexible/rubber feel to it, this is hard plastic, certainly more of that than there is metal to be fair.

Chain guide.

Yep, chain guides. Very common but it shouldn't be doing it so soon after a rebuild. I replaced mine in my C2 and they're a better material these days. Yours mustn't have been renewed during the rebuild. The worry is how far are they worn? If you're getting metal as well that's probably not good. You have 2 choices. 1) monitor it by dropping the oil and filter every 1000 miles and see if it's gets worse. 2) dive into the heads and see what's what. Not great unfortunately. Here's what they look like - http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=118164&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=340 As I say, the plastic bits are common and not that big a deal. I chose option 2 though and had my Indy replace the guides in the heads.

That's not so good 3000 miles in. The guides, chains etc were all renewed during the rebuild that's why I was doubting what I was seeing.

Least they can be changed in situ.

Who did it?

It was done at Hartech, I'll have to phone up and ask a few questions but the warranty is done now so if it's needing something I dare say I'll need to foot the bill again.

Did you have the oil and filter changed after the first 1000/3000 miles , Hartech told me to do this as I live too far from them to run it back up. they told me to expect to see a bit of metal debris this was due to them wanting the engine to have some wear as apparently its not good for everything to be super smooth . I think they said they use a thin oil initially to make this happen the debris is collected by the magnetic sump plug. then I was to change to a thicker oil ,I went with millers nano plus 10w50 . Sounds to me like you are in that phase of the running in process :thumb: :thumb:

Certainly sounds like that could be the case, I did change the oil at 1000 miles and like yourself I moved onto the 10/50 Millers, that's me now onto it's 2nd change at 3000miles so it could very well be the running in process, I was just slightly shocked when I seen this I was expecting filter to be clear, as I say it's the plastic fragments that had me.

Look anything like this? I had this in mine, cleaned out sump and no more signs. Also added a magnetic sump plug and nothing since. That's was 10k miles ago.

We always like to help and advise so I am not sure why this has to be discussed with people who in some cases know very little on the Internet when we always explain to all our customers to expect this (as Phil 997 amply demonstrated). There are also some rather odd contradictions here. Most customers who have top level rebuilds have all 6 cylinders replaced. Customers who are counting the pennies may well avoid that advice and stick to existing cylinders and support rings (which is increasingly rare) ? The post has many issues I cannot fathom at the moment. There is a 24K or 2 year warranty on our rebuilds and yet apparently it was done recently, covered 3K and yet the warranty is apparently "done"? When I get to work tomorrow I will try and find some old pictures of the consequences of using flexible engine sealant during a rebuild (which basically blocked the complete oil filter entry in one failed engine that came in for rebuild many years ago). This is because although the general advice is to wipe away excess sealant on building but that is OK where the joint can be seen from the outside but there are numerous areas inside the engine where you cannot possibly get inside to wipe excess away (like where oil galleries are formed by a flat surface shutting onto one with an oil groove along it for example). In these sealant squeezes out internally and sits inside the engine oil galleries where the oil travels AFTER THE FILTER and can eventually fall off and travel with the oil into the big ends or other bearings and can block the oil supply. Because of this there are areas where we absolutely correctly use an anaerobic sealant which remains fluid unless air is expelled and sets in the joints but is washed away if it squeezes out and ends up causing no damage (while it is fluid) but in the oil filter where it eventually hardens through heat and is an orange brown plastic looking material. (similar to chain guides) - nothing at all unusual there. The whole purpose of running in is to allow the minute metallic wear particles to escape and the load to be spread over the whole areas rather than any manufacturing peaks- nothing unusual there either. So we end up with a garbled story about something that seems perfectly normal, involving our workmanship (when nothing has gone wrong) and others joining in that this and that must be wrong from someone we don't know whose record doesn't make much sense either - when all they had to do was call us to discuss when I feel we could have put their mind to rest. We also have comprehensive records of the condition of all the parts in all the engines we rebuild and know which recommendations were followed and which were not. The fact that the cylinders were not replaced suggests not everything recommended might have been addressed as well. The whole purpose of running in and early oil changes after a rebuild is to remove stuff that properly will always form and we have a procedure with engines we rebuild and have the whole car where we first do this ourselves after 50 miles using different oils precisely to aid the running in process under our control. However we also explain everything to our customers and I am not sure why in this case that doesn't seem to have happened? Just call us and we will try and advise accordingly but this all seems unnecessary and misleading at the moment. Baz