Metal sludge in sump after rebuild




Hey i am busy with an xr4i to pit on a aftermarket ecu.




To cut things short: i dropped a stainless ring in my engine. And luckily it went in my sump. So i dropped the sump of my car.

To find some metal sludge in my sump. 3 mm of oil that woud not mix with the rest of the oil.




The engine is rebuild some years ago. About 3/4 years. 2 years ago i pilled it apart again for diffrent alu camshaft gears and head gasket. No metal found!!! i did break the engine in with normal

Oil. No disturbing things found.

Dont know if i replaced the oil back then.




After the 2nd tear down i used the car mainly for short distance. Had some long high speed runs on the autobahn some small burnouts. Nothimg really crazy

Light to mild abuse engine always warm.




1st teardown:

New arp conrod bolts

Gaskets

Crank bearings

Conrod bearings

Piston rings + hone

High flow oil pump

New used crank




2nd tear down

New new camshaft no bearings

New timing gear

Headgasket







As i am busy with the aftermarket ecu. I have let the car sit for about 3/4 months. Last month i cranked the engine with no plugs to see if there was a crank signal. I cranked the car for maybe 5 whole minutesfrom last month to noe (in maybe 50 key turns.

And last i saw there was no oil pressure while cranking.

So i primed the engine and got 4 bar of oil pressure with a electric drill.

Oil pressure on cranking is 3.4 bar somewhere around that.







Is it normal to find metal particels in the oil at this stage? I ve driven it for around 2to 3000 miles since the first teardown.

 

5 minutes of cranking, no oil pressure throughout - doesnt bode well.

Regardless, although on a fresh build you'd expect to see a little material floating in the oil (and i do mean little), under no normal circumstance would i expect to see a "sludge". Something is fooked!

 

This is what i found.
no idea how it can possibly be that there is no oil pressure. Because i had pressure when i put it away.
and i did nothing to the engine meanwhile it sat.

the sparkplugs were out. And no real firing happend only cranking.

but i gues this metal sludge can not be like this just by cranking. From a month??

 

The sludge could have hardened when the motor cooled down and blocked an oil gallery or something. Certainly something badly amiss in there unfortunately

 

i think that´s not the problem there is absolute 0 metal in the oil. I am guessing it is just the aluminium just adjusted on the steel crank gear.

But the problem of no oil pressure after standing still is still there. Just cranked it again after letting it sit for a month. And again no oil pressure after 2 second cranking. which normally it did after sitting 3 months!!! oil pressure with priming is good!
So i can´t beleive that it is the oil pump (which is new). I also cant believe it is the oil filter that is changed numerous of times.

I had this problem before and also suddenly before the rebuild and with an other engine. I changed gasket between oil pump and block and both times that was the problem.
i am seriously getting a headache of this ####### car and ####### engine.
Why do these gaskets fail every 2 years?

does annyone know where to get some good qaulity ones that don´t fail

 

Some new oil pumps have been reported to have swarf/metal inside so people have been stripping them before fitting. This was on audi engines but the same might have happened to a ford pump.

 

Would be weird couldn't find any with the second tear down. Could post up a sample to know what exactly is in it.
what i just dont get is why that gasket fails every time...