I am getting started trouble shooting what I believe is chain noise (I have another thread on that) and have dropped the oil pan this morning for the first time since owning the car (more than a year and 1/2).
I found this:
Right dead center in the black plastic baffle area that keeps the oil near the sump.
I am baffled. Immediately before dropping the pan I swept out under the car so that my creeper wheels would not get hung up on anything. I had a large piece of cardboard laid out to catch any oil, hit the pan with the dead blow hammer a bunch of times and pried it away with a screwdriver. That all went very smoothly and when the pan came loose it was a controlled decent to the cardboard. I did have some oil spilling out on the cardboard and left the pan so I could grab a new piece of cardboard and some rags and swap out the first one before it became saturated. Once I pulled out the pan I could see the leaf (which I thought was paper at first) and pulled it out.
It must have made it in during the process of pulling the pan right? (maybe it was clinging on to the back or side of the engine and fell down as I flipped the cardboard?)
I know the airbox angle sucks. I actually remember when I first got the car checking the filter and thinking that something might have slide past as I pulled it out. But even if that were possible how would a leaf make it through the intake valve, survive combustion, slip past a ring and then manage not to decompose in my pan? When I put new oil in I don't think there is any way a leaf could have made it in. I just use that pop-up funnel under the cap and pour directly from the oil bottles.
Anyone ever seen anything like this? I really have no idea how it could have made it in today as I pulled the pan, but I think I have to assume it must have, right?
The good news is that I only found a couple of plastic pieces in the pan from the guides.
And now that I am reviewing my images of the screen on the sump I think i see something jammed in it, will go back for that one.
I also found a few small flakes in the filter.
So while I know there is a guide issue, i did not find large pieces or lots of quantity.
bg305 
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