Garbage in Oil

[Thumperbird]

Well I know this collective audience has seen it all and this one is probably easy for some of you.
Found a piece of metal on the end of my magnetic oil plug upon oil change, about .1" wide by .5" long, probably 3 to 5 thou. thick.  Found another much smaller piece in the filter after cutting it open, a little very fine metallic particulate present on filter as well I think.Poked a magent up in the pan, nothing else big came out but did not pull pan.

What am I looking at here, bearing going out or ?  Run it and see how it goes this next summer or that is crazy tear it down now sort of deal?  Oil pressure has been fine and was running well last summer, or at least I thought so.  Had switched to 10w-40 synthetic last year, hmm.

Thanks.

[Gregwill16]

I know it is a pain but I would pull the pan and check the bearings. Too expensive to chance it and then the whole motor has to come out and apart.

[Stangman]

Maybe a sliver of cam bearing? Just had a cam bearing problem myself oil pressure was fine. I took mine out not saying you have to but it might be something simple right now.

[cjshaker]

If it was stuck to the magnet, the only part of the bearing it could be is from the metal backing. The lead and babbit isn't magnetic. If you had particles in the filter, I'd definitely be checking things out. See if the particles are magnetic also. Lot's of places it could come from, but if that piece is from a bearing, that's not good. Might also try checking your distributor gear and rocker system. You can do that without tearing the engine apart. Try the easy stuff first.

[1968galaxie]

Wide cam bearings used?
Could possibly cause an issue.

[GerryP]

Tear is down.  You have glitter in your oil filter.  Unless you have installed a full flow filtering system, that glitter has moved through the engine and will continue to do so as the engine eats itself.  The glitter is probably the cam.  But it doesn't matter.  This engine is finished for now.

[shady]

That could have been in there a long time and just now found its way to the magnet. a piece of flashing, who knows. Rather than panic, I would change the oil and drive it 500 miles and then cut open the filter and have a look. But that's just me.

[Riderjeff]

Unfortunately, I think you need to answer which is worse:  The hassle of pulling/dismantling the engine?  Or paying for a replacement should it lunch itself? Sure, do the easy stuff first, and you COULD get lucky. But I suspect you already realize this could be serious trouble.

[jayb]

I've been scratching my head over what that piece in the picture could be.  If you were losing a main or rod bearing, those have a copper backing material that will flake off and get into the oil; you would have seen those copper flakes when you cut open the oil filter.  Since you didn't see those, I don't think it's mains or rods, but that piece could have come off the edge of a cam bearing.  I had a cam bearing failure once where the bearing walked forward out of the bore and started hitting one of the lifters.  It eventually sheared some pieces off, that kind of looked like the one in the picture. 

Really tough to diagnose something like that without tearing down the engine...

[Thumperbird]

Yeah, took a closer look at the filter today, plenty metallic particulate present, you could see a couple drops of oil extracted from the filter migrate towards the magnet, crap.

Did not see copper but will take a closer look for that, was focusing on shiny and magnetic.

[machoneman]

Yeah, sounds like a cam issue. 

[Barry_R]

Don't know what that is, but it looks like it saw some heat before it broke free.
Work your way through it - pan, skirts, bearings, valvetrain...

[katink]

All the cam bearings melted to some degree, #2 cam bearing was spun and discovered the oil gallery plug behind the distributor was missing.  Teardown was for retrieving pieces of a broken rocker arm, had no idea the cam was making a heroic effort to leave.  Glitter in the oil filter.  Probably should not have limped home after the rocker broke, but can't tell if the two events were related.  Good luck.

[shady]

Are you running drip and valley tins?

[Thumperbird]

Yes, it does look like it saw some heat, blued and cracked up for sure.
No, not running drip or valley tins, Harland Sharp rockers, Edelbrock heads with RPM air gap intake, hydraulic rollers. 
Had valve covers off recently, looked spotless there, no hints of an issue. of course I put them and carbs back on before the discovery, oh well.
Will start with the pan and go from there I guess.