5 replies to this topic

[marshn0138]

My car is a 2000 reg MPI sportspack which i have owned for a couple of  months and used intermittently for a few hundred miles. 

 

The car seems to drive ok with no issues with the engine or gearbox and no strange noises. 

 

When I changed the oil this weekend I found a piece of brass / bronze in the dirty oil. I think there may have been another smaller piece which i didn't quite catch when trying to filter the oil out. The old  oil was quite dirty and may not have been changed recently. Obviously I have no knowledge of how long these fragments may have been in the sump

 

The car seems to drive ok with no issues with the engine or gearbox and no strange noises. 

 

 

I have included a couple of pictures to see if anyone can identify what they might be and suggestions on what to do next. I have some mechanical skills but would probably need to get any work done by someone else if the engine needs to come out.

 

 mini sump 2.JPG   62.73K   2 downloads

 mini sump1.JPG   67.44K   2 downloads

 

 

There was a similar posting in 2010 where there seemed to be an opinion it was part of the differential

[whistler]

Looks like it could be part of a selector fork.

[DeadSquare]

My car is a 2000 reg MPI sportspack which i have owned for a couple of  months and used intermittently for a few hundred miles. 

 

The car seems to drive ok with no issues with the engine or gearbox and no strange noises. 

 

When I changed the oil this weekend I found a piece of brass / bronze in the dirty oil. I think there may have been another smaller piece which i didn't quite catch when trying to filter the oil out. The old  oil was quite dirty and may not have been changed recently. Obviously I have no knowledge of how long these fragments may have been in the sump

 

The car seems to drive ok with no issues with the engine or gearbox and no strange noises. 

 

 

I have included a couple of pictures to see if anyone can identify what they might be and suggestions on what to do next. I have some mechanical skills but would probably need to get any work done by someone else if the engine needs to come out.

 

mini sump 2.JPG

mini sump1.JPG

 

 

There was a similar posting in 2010 where there seemed to be an opinion it was part of the differential

 

There's inflation for you.

 

When I was young, they used to say "A penny for your thoughts".

[MacGyver]

Like Whistler said, a piece of one of the selector forks is the more likely suspect.
The differential copper bits usually get mashed to copper dust.
I would just leave as is for the moment if no problems or noises, but someone like Guesswork or the likes might be more inclined to give a better (professional) point of view.
Odd thing to brake tho... ? Good thing copper is softer than steel.

Ben

[jeffster06]

When I was rebuilding my engine this past winter I found one of the copper cup washers on the diff seemed to have lost 1/4 of itself. I found plenty of bits like that in the bottom of the sump, almost looks like ti could be the locating tab for the washer I'm talking about. See the copper washers on the bottom of the pic in the link, that's what I lost a chunk of. 

 

http://www.guess-wor...play.htm?id=113

[Retroman]

Thats a lump of selector

 

Not sure which bit....wonder why its broken off ?

 

As above don't worry until something goes wrong

 

I would get the engine hot, jack the left of the car up and drop the oil

 

You might then get the other piece of the jigsaw, and have a bit more peace of mind that its not floating round