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Gold flecks in oil

Cubes

By Cubes,
in General Maintenance

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Cubes Grand Master

Cubes

Posted
Posted

When I origionally bought my R32 RB20DET 2.5years ago the first oil drop I found quite large chunks of gold looking bits of metal which were hard but were able to be crushed.

After several close oil changes the flecks appeared to dissapear with only the odd little tinny bit of gold fleck.

The gold fleck is definately still there and it has been 2.5years later and 90,000 hard km's of running 1.1bar of boost with lots of high rev's.

The engine is still perfectly quiet (160,000km's total), doesn't use oil and still goes as it did 2.5years ago.

What are these flecks. The head has previously been off (as seen by marks on head bolts) some gaskets appeared new etc.

Is it possible the engine had been rebuilt soon before I had purchased the car or is it simply a bearing failure of some kind that has hung in there?

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4door_Sleeper Veteran

4door_Sleeper

Posted
Posted

My money would be on a bearing wearing

(hey I'm a poet - and I didnt know it)

(I make rhymes all the times)

sorry about that

It would be hard to know for sure without stripping the motor (or at least the bottom end) but you may be lucky and get an idea if you have access to an endoscope

4door_Sleeper Veteran

4door_Sleeper

Posted
Posted
it has been 2.5years later and 90,000 hard km's of running 1.1bar of boost with lots of high rev's.

 

The engine is still perfectly quiet (160,000km's total), doesn't use oil and still goes as it did 2.5years ago.

If its due a rebuild, you cant complain after that sort of use for that long. Just drive it till it goes :Bang: and then start the rebuild. :) (start collecting parts now)

Merli Grand Master

Merli

Posted
Posted

Gold/Coppery metal bits usually indicates bearings...

Doesn't really matter anyway, just run it until it spins a bearing and then get it rebuilt. Nothing you can do at the moment, except maybe run a slightly thicker oil to slow down the wear...

Cubes Grand Master

Cubes

Posted
  • Author
Posted

New motor has already been built so no collecting of parts required :)

25de head ported polished, forged pistons, rb30 bottom end etc..

Only problem now is having time to take the car off the road.

If it wasn't for the paint shop saga the motor would have been in there these holidays.

Next oil drop (which I haven't done for 10,000kms as i'm getting slack with the ol' rb20) i'll take a few pics of the flecks or sometimes chunks of gold.

Then when I pull the motor down i'll take more pics of dud bearing.

Just a note, when I first got the car it was running Castrol Magnatec (yuk) and upon hitting the brakes hard I would get the oil light coming on.

Lots of oil changes later and this dissapeared.

Drifterdan Collaborator

Drifterdan

Posted
Posted

Hey Joel,

My old vl turbo had the "gold glitter" problem too which was discovered when my oil pressure was tested and found to be very low(caused by faulty oil pump). Any way after a good 14 months after the new oil pump and many a thrashing its finally shat itself. I cant belive it took such a caining with no oil pressure, overheating and lots of revving....

Cubes Grand Master

Cubes

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Interesting..

Come to think of it when I first bought the car I was also having low oil pressure problems. Dropping almost to 0 after hard runs and for no reason when simply cruising. As I mentioned previously it would also cause the oil pressure light to come on when braking hard in to a corner.

It has since dissapeared after I ran Castrol GTX2 for quite a few weeks changing oil every week. This appeared to bring the oil pressure back to normal and the gold flecks have appeard to almost dissapear.

Since then I ran Penrite HPR10 and returned the oil changes back to every 5000km's unlike the previous 400-500km's every week.

  • 4 weeks later...
GTRsean Grand Master

GTRsean

Posted
Posted

Though so.

My r32 GTR Didn't have an oil change for ages when I bought it.

After an oil change oil was still black!!!

This is very bad for engines, esp for Turbo's as I found out the hard way.

Anyway, I do the usual oil change every 5000k and filter at the same time because there is so much crap from not being changed for ages(not driven much by previous owner but caned when it was).

After around 2000k's one of the turbos decides to crap itself after a couple of high speed runs at 1.35 Bar.

The compressor is rubbing on the housing from bearings being stuffed.

My car had R33 n1 turbos already fitted, and since they are a ball bearing type I read somewhere that they don't like dirty oil and I think thats what has stuffed em. Now I gotta rip em out and fix em. I'm thinking of getting them rebuilt and highflowed.

Engine is still good, should do a compression test on it.

It runs a HKS f-con v pro piggyback computer. How hard are they to get tuned?

wrxhoon Grand Master

wrxhoon

Posted
Posted

The compressor is rubbing on the housing from bearings being stuffed.

My car had R33 n1 turbos already fitted, and since they are a ball bearing type I read somewhere that they don't like dirty oil and I think thats what has stuffed em. Now I gotta rip em out and fix em. I'm thinking of getting them rebuilt and highflowed.

r33 n1 turbos are not ball bearing , i have them in my r33 very good turbos dont hi flow them , take them to garrett to have them rebuild .

kingscorp Rising Star

kingscorp

Posted
Posted

Joel

You can buy oil test kits, they cost about $35 - $40. They are very informative and will tell you if there is any bearing wear. These kits are used by transport fleets as preventative maintenace, The test will pick up any fault before it actually breaks down.

If you do get one of these kits fill in the form with as much information as posible. i.e. Km's since oil change, recent repairs ect. then just put it in a post box and the results will be mailed back to you.

Kits available from most oil companys.

If you are in Perth I can get you one.

Regards

ASHLY

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