View Single Post
Old 05-28-2019, 01:47 AM   #1
Liamray
Registered User
 
Liamray's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2019
Location: Australia
Posts: 36
Unknown material in oil filter?

Recently aquired a 2001 Boxster 2.7 Tiptronic with 146,000kms on the clock.

The car has only done 5,000kms in the last 3yrs, and I don't think it's had an oil or filter change in that time.

When I dropped the oil and pulled the filter, I found a lot of what looked at first like metal in the filter and assumed the worst that the IMS bearing had failed. But after cutting the filter open and washing it and collecting all of the material in the filter, I found that it was not metal (ferrous or alloy). After running a powerful magnet over the material all I got was a few very tiny slivers of ferrous metal, and found no alloy at all. But the remaining material is a mystery, apart from a few pieces of what is obvioulsy cam guide pad material (light and dark brown), the rest of it's a dark green color and it's the consistency of hard rubber?

I pulled the transmission to check the IMS Bearing and the back of it was in perfect condition, so I decided that having come this far I might just as well pull it out and put in a new one. After pulling it out I found it in as new condition, no deterioration in the plastic and the bearing was as smoooth as?

So has anyone ever seen this type of material in a filter before, I have no idea where this dark green material could have come from. The only thing that has been replaced in the engine was the RMS at 120,000kms.

When I pulled the bottom right cam tensioner and cleaned and primed it, I noticed that it was allowing oil to steadly seep out of the plunger shaft, so guessing it's had it.

Picture shows cam pad material on the left and the mystery green material on the right.
Liamray is offline   Reply With Quote