[Healeys] (no subject)

[Steven Kingsbury]

Michael,
   I found the same item sitting in the bottom of my oil pan. I have a BN1 and think the way it was baked into the debris on the bottom of the pan, that it had been there a long time. It is a timing chain tensioner (sp?). Mine had been sitting there for years I'm sure, but it never affected my oil pressure. And still doesn't. I never took the engine apart to replace it and I've put many a mile on the car since I discovered it over a year ago now, so it seems my car can do without it. Had me baffled though and it was through this email list that I got point in the right direction.
   Good luck in finding what's causing the oil pressure drop.
Steven Kingsbury
BN1 #598 

On Sep 24, 2017, at 01:34 PM, Michael Oritt <michael.oritt at gmail.com> wrote:

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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