Mysterious Oil Pan Findings

[paulwaul1369]

For my Z71 Tahoe LT V8 5.3 I was replacing the oil pump. And you know that means you have to drop the pan to do this amongst other things like the xfer case, a cross member and the axle shaft. In the oil pan, I found this broken piece of something... some pins, andwhat looks like a lock ring. (All metal) Check out the pics and lemme know if you know what these might be. There is a backstory though. I just did a top end and replaced all the lifters, guides and all gaskets for the exhaust manifold, intake manifold, and valve covers. I'm hoping these were there from a previous job before I bought the damm thing. I did a pretty clean and thorough job. Enough of the blabbing. Here are the pics.

 

[mikez71]

rocker arm needle bearings. I have heard about these falling out..
Since that chunk of what I think is a rocker is in there, I'll bet it's from a previous job.
Have heard of the bearings showing up and everything still running fine...

 

[strutaeng]

Yikes. Agree with @mikez71

Why did you replace the oil pump? Did you have oil pressure issues? Was that resolved?

Time to remove the valve cover, but you just replaced the top end and would have seen the rocker issue. So it's possible that was from a previous job, yes.

 

[j91z28d1]

yep.. I've heard of it, but never seen it in real life.

wow. definitely inspect all the rockers.

 

[solli5pack]

That looks like the remains of a failed non afm lifter. Here's a pic of a bad one I pulled out of my Yukon.

 

[paulwaul1369]

That's it. I gotta double check those lifters just to make sure the new ones are still good. Thanks everyone. I'm still putting the xfer case back on right now. Once I get it all back together I'll check those lifters before starting her up.

 

[donjetman]

You do know? the only way to visually do that is to pull the heads off and pull the lifters out.

 

[mikez71]

Though if the roller broke apart on his new lifter, the rocker would likely have play?

 

[solli5pack]

Though if the roller broke apart on his new lifter, the rocker would likely have play?

I'm thinking if the roller detonated while the engine was running there is going to be quite of bit of internal damage to the cam, bearings and maybe crankshaft? Looks like he only found half the roller so the other half is somewhere up in the engine. The rocker for that lifter should definitely be acting funny.

 

[mikez71]

Makes sense.. Too many bearings fell out and the roller was loose and banging.. Paulwaul would have noticed that!

Hopefully the previous owner replaced the cam too..

Maybe Paulwaul got a look at the cam lobes when he replaced lifters?

 

[ivin74]

Those are pieces of a broken lifter, you need to remove the heads and inspect the cam. I would not do any other work until you inspect top end of the engine. You may wanna just rebuild the entire engine depending on how many miles are on the suv.


I had the same thing happen to my son's truck. Look at the pictures on thread 52

04 Silverado started knocking, what could it be? Rebuild started

Salvage yards for Truck/SUV parts are like Blondes in Oklahoma......EVERYWHERE!

www.tahoeyukonforum.com

 

[mikez71]

It was running fine before? (minus low oil pressure?)

If the cam was replaced already, he's good.

If not replaced, he will have to pull the head when failure and replace cam and 1 lifter?
If he does it pre-emptively, he's only saving the cost of 1 lifter.
But if it's OK, he's buying a new headgasket and headbolts for nothing?

I say run it! But I'm occasionally reckless and always lazy..

 

[j91z28d1]

I've had the oil pan off an ls, and with an inspection mirror you can see all of the cam lobes from the bottom. I checked my ls3 car when I did the oil pan gasket.


I still think this was a previous rocker arm issue they replaced. but it's worth looking up at the cam, even thou it's new and pulling the valve covers to check it's not currently broken. if so, replace the bearings with the bushing kit is the most common upgrade

 

[Geotrash]

It was running fine before? (minus low oil pressure?)

If the cam was replaced already, he's good.

If not replaced, he will have to pull the head when failure and replace cam and 1 lifter?
If he does it pre-emptively, he's only saving the cost of 1 lifter.
But if it's OK, he's buying a new headgasket and headbolts for nothing?

I say run it! But I'm occasionally reckless and always lazy..

Not reckless at all. It’s exactly what I would do as well.