oil pan surprise

B6/7 S4/RS4
#1

Hi, everyone. Great forum here! I’ve been lurking for a little while but this is my first post. I have a 2004 S4 and am about to put the engine back in after replacing all the timing guides and tensioners. The last thing I am in the process of dropping the oil pan and re-sealing it. I found a bunch of small pieces of shattered guides, as expected, but then I also found these 4 small pieces of metal. :-[

http://i.imgur.com/Vd0d6jA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/61B15X0.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/l4GGoET.jpg

Does anyone have any idea what this metal piece is? I’m praying it’s not something critical that I need to open the engine back up for.

#2

Wow well ok that dosent look good but that dosent mean its something terrible either.

A few questions. Is that megnetic or not. That can tell alot.

I think when you pull the pan looking under there might tell more. I cant see a lot in the pictures. I cant see enough to eliminate certian things.

welcome to the site

#3

Strange, looks like thin aluminum. It’s also weird that the one side is not varnished at all which you would expect if it had been in the engine for how ever many miles you have on it.

#4

It is not magnetic. I found those pieces inside the pan after I dropped it, there was no other metal at all. Just this pile of plastic bits:

http://i.imgur.com/z7sVRM8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/fTcerQP.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/mVgfG2A.jpg

that third pic might help show the scale of the metal pieces I showed in my first post because you can see the same block of wood in that the metal pieces were pictured beside.

I’m not seeing anything else that looks amiss, is there anything specific I should look for?

http://i.imgur.com/sWeNA9b.jpg

#5

Pictures are always helpful.

I was thinking on this for a while.

What it looks like it might be is the small reinforcement part that is in the guides. Considering how broken they are that tab or reinforcement part would have come out.

For another piece of mind you can re check the heads and make sure it didnt fall off the valve cover.

#6

Time for a timing chain job unfortunately:

https://jhmotorsports.com/shop/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=timing+chain+kit&x=0&y=0

How many miles do you have on the car?

#7

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p526x296/13164262_1018329981548618_1952025039690118725_n.jpg?oh=a44580762385d7081a109d108c9fd406&oe=57DE74BA

Fresh timing chain kit going in on a customers engine.

The middle left side guide in the photo (guide is now metal with our kit) is likely the guide that you see in many pieces in your pan.

#8

He just got done lol, reread post #1.

#9

Good catch! I got distracted by the mess in the pan lol

Specifically for the metal parts, there is no way to definitely tell what that came from without more extensive photos of the inside of your engine.

#10

TY for the input. My first thought/hope was that it would be something from the timing chain area, but I was trying to think of what it could be and I don’t believe that any of the broken guides had any metal pieces reinforcing them…
When I had the valve covers off I very closely inspected everything that could be seen and didn’t see anything that stood out as looking broken or oddly worn or anything. I don’t want to tear it back apart again now especially without knowing what to look for, so I think I’m just going to cross my fingers and put the engine back in and hope it was nothing vital.

In any case, what can be determined based on the fact that it’s not magnetic? Does that rule out bearings or valvetrain parts?

#11

due to it being curved I was thinking it might be the incert for the bolt section on the guides. Some of them had a sleeve in them. That looks like it could be part of the sleeve.

The material magnet question was to eliminate the bearings and other impornant parts. It dosent look like a bearing piece even tho its hard to tell what it really is I dosent look like anything major. You took great pictures but its still tough to really gauge

#12

Those look a lot like bits of your old guides. Have you started the engine yet since re-installing it?

#13

Thats what I thought. I keep trying to find the pictures where the older guides have the sleeve in them for the bolts.

#14

it’s funny, I was picturing the same thing at first - a sleeve inside a guide, but when I looked at my old guides and at pictures online, I am not seeing anything like that. They just have holes in the plastic that the mounting pins go through. I thought of something else it might be… When I was tightening the cam adjuster, I put a 24mm wrench on the hex flats at the opposite end of the camshaft to hold it still, and at one point the wrench rubbed against the edge of the head and caused some metal shavings to come off. I thought I had cleaned them all up, but maybe I missed a few pieces and they fell all the way down to the sump… The shape would seem odd, but sometimes when you shave a small piece off of a flat surface, the shaving takes a curled shape (I’m picturing chocolate shavings, for example, but I’m not sure if the same curl would happen with metal shavings). it’s a stretch but that’s the only other idea I can come up with

I haven’t started it yet. I should have it back in the car in the next day or two.

#15

I have another questions, it’s completely unrelated but I thought it might be better to ask here than to start a new thread. can anyone tell me what these extra 2 connections on the radiator are? they are the two with yellow covers shown in this pic -
https://www.europaparts.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/cd6085ca2ccd08373d4b6de971808fb4/8/e/8e0121251ab.jpg

I only remember removing the 2 main radiator hoses. I didn’t even realize those were there until just now when I was looking at my radiator and the 2 uncovered openings really stood out, I’m not sure if they were always open like that but they don’t look like it based on how clean and shiny they are. The radiator has been sitting in my garage for several weeks now while I’ve been working on the car. I don’t think anyone else would’ve messed with it, but people have been in and out of the garage when I wasn’t there so it’s possible. Do these two ports need to be covered and/or connected to something when the radiator is in the car?

#16

If you have a manual car they dont really go to anything. If you have a automatic thats for the transmission cooler. You can use them as a second cooler but the temps are usually higher then most things you would want to cool.

#17

Your mystery piece is something I keep search for. From what I have found. Some of the colder guides…but not all had slleeves in the upper guide. Im trying to find part numebrs and guide update part numbers and years but it just hasnt been easy.

The other thing. Old guides have a cut out for the upper guide. There is a chance that your upper section on the block has broken off.

#18

well that’s a relief about the radiator, it is a manual. Thanks again for all your advice, you are the man! My upper middle guide was mostly gone, a piece of it was still attached at the right side mounting point but the left side was missing, and this is an early 04 so if the older ones had sleeves on the left side then that would make sense. the mounting point on the right side didn’t have a sleeve, but the mounting pin for that side is unique in that it has a collar instead of just being a straight piece like the rest so I wouldn’t be surprised if the left side was different than the right as far as the sleeve

#19

Well just to leave an update, the engine is running well now with new timing components. Still don’t know what that piece was but it seems to be fine.

I am having a problem with vag-com, though. I can’t monitor anything because I can only stay connected to the engine control module for about 30 seconds before I get an error that says “no response from controller” and takes me back to the main menu. Other modules usually work but occasionally give me the same error, or another one that says, iirc, “too many communications errors to continue.” This happened before I pulled the motor with multiple laptops, so I don’t think it’s a connection problem with something that I had removed. I’ve tried multiple different laptops again, all with the latest version of vag-com, and have tried everything in their faq for communications errors. I’ll probably have to contact them for further tech support but I thought I’d ask here first if there is anything specific to our cars that commonly causes this to happen? I also saw a lot of different short to ground/plus codes come up before I pulled the motor, from a lot of different components which seemed weird, but since then I’ve only see that code come up for the outside air temp sensor which doesn’t seem so weird as it’s been happening intermittently for a while

#20

oh I forgot to say this and can’t edit my post but I also wanted to say thanks to everyone for you help with my questions. The tip about checking if it’s magnetic was definitely a good one, that put my mind at ease to know the critical parts would be magnetic.