ok, so i had the oil pan today doing some wrenching and I looked down in the oil sitting in the pan and it had a bunch of dark sediment in it. I stuck a magnet down in the sediment and sure enough it was metal. Allong with the sediment there was the odd tiny piece of metal. Now my question is, could this be the result of machine work done for a rebuild or do i have a bigger problem here?
The back ground on this bike is i bought it from Jake D, who'd had a rebulid done on it about 40 milles before selling it to me. I know he had a cylinder honed, new rod, and piston and the head rebuilt. Could that work leave that kind of sediment in the oil pan?
I've never done a rebuild, but I was under the impression that there would be a bit of wear on these engines when new/rebuilt, which is why you perform the first oil change very soon after you get the bike.
I'd change the oil, and get a magnetic drain plug. Change it again after a few hundred miles or so. If you still get metal, there's probably something else going on.
Edit: www.magneticdrainplug.com
It's just like it was being broken-in again, you're going to get those little metal shavings in the oil from the rings scraping the newly honed cylinders until they get seated again.
WHEW!!!! Oh, ok, I was about to cry there for a second. I've spent like two months of weekends tracking down little gremlins on this bike to get it running and i was worried it was all going to be for nothing.
Photos?
Some "metal dust" would be normal. It will tend to remain suspended in the oil, lending it a metallic silver apperarance. "Chunks" are not good.
Remove the oil filter cover and oil filter. There are two round recesses about 1/2" in diameter below the oil filter mounting location. Get a clean paper towel and clean those recesses out. Tell us what you find. Better yet, post photos. Make sure to clean ALL the sludge out of these holes. Loosening up the sludge and then leaving it in the housing is not a healthy thing. You can also wash out your oil filter with paint thinner and then strain the thinner through a clean towell.
Why only ONE cylinder honed, ONE new rod, and ONE new piston?
yea that sounds odd to me as well, you need to tear the enigne down and see were its coming form.
well, once i got back to check out the pan again this weekend and change the oil and filter it turns out that chunks i was seeming in the pan were all pretty much either little rubbery bit (some kind of gasket sealer i guess) or imperfections in the pan itself (little pointy mountains). I got all the sediment out of the pan and it was basically like a powder that was just left setting between the fins inside the pan after i drained the oil.