jtearp

During my last oil change I put in magnetic drain plugs. When I pulled one of them out I found several valve stem seal spring pieces and some other metal on the plug (pictures are posted on my profile page, sorry I have not figured out how to post them within the post). The first picture shows all of the pieces. Down at the bottom of the picture by the quarter are two pieces of metal. I flattened them back out and they are show in the 2nd picture. I have not been able to identify what these pieces are. They do have a teal color on them which is the color of the seals. Any ideas on what it is? Obviously I need to replace all the valve stem seals, but it there anything else I should do? Should I pull the heads? Should I be concerned the pieces coming off and making their way to the bottom of the motor has caused some other internal damage. The car was running fine with the exception of consuming a decent amount of oil. Thanks for any help and advice.

The car is 06 z06 with a fully built motor. The bottom end is forged with darden sleeves, a fairly big cam, ported heads with ss valves and upgraded springs, fast 102 intake, ported throttle body, long tube headers, and katech clutch.

jedblanks

Could this have been in there from before the motor reworked?

db2xpert

If it was mine, I'd have the whole engine taken apart and checked.

jtearp

Jedblanks - I am assuming this was not left in the motor from the rebuild since the driver side is missing the springs.

triblk6spd

Whoa.that sucks. Was.the rebuild done by a.reputable shop? Heads done by the same place?
Im no expert but id cut open the filter.as.well.

jedblanks

ouch...

Not much left to do here but pull the heads.

vvlf

+1

Any short cuts are most likely going to result in Catastrophic failure. Its a pain in the ***, but if you want to do it right, you gotta pull that motor and have it opened up since its already loosing seals

RFZ

i have had that happen with aftermarket springs/retainers...on mine i cleaned the oil pan, put stock springs/retainers back on [small cam] and the motor is still running 30k later..

in my case , valve rotation caused the springs to dig into the retainers, which caused the springs to start rotating chewing up the seals and destroying the springs..had 2 handfuls of debris in the oil pickup screen. i did the repair with the heads on the car.

Landru

Excellent.
Great you recalled this phenom. I remembered reading of [it] here some months ago. Had most people stumped as to the cause. Methinks you nailed it.

jtearp

The work was done by a reputable motor builder. The heads were done before I bought the car though. When the motor was built I had new springs installed and one valve was replaced (piece of piston exiting the cylinder messed it up). I am unsure if the valve stem seals were replaced then or not.

RFZ - Glad to hear you were able to just change them out and keep running without any issues. Did you drop the oil pan to clean it out, and how hard is this to do?

I have spoken with the builder and the person who installed the motor, and they both feel changing the seals (without pulling the heads) should correct the issue and I shouldn't worry about any internal damage. I am a little on the fence.

Luweegy

I found the same about a year ago and changed all the valve seals with the heads on the car.Still driving it and waiting on a set of new WCCH's for it rt now. All the broken valve seal ring parts were acounted for on my drain plug.

RFZ

i did pull the pan because of the ammount of debris...wasn't a problem for me as i have a complete shop with lift..when you change the seals inspect that the springs/retainers are ok and compatible with each other...should be no problem once the seals/springs/retainers are properly repaired

BOO5TED

I had identical metal pieces on my drain plug. Pulled the pass side valve cover off & found a tiny tiny spring next to one of my comp valve springs as well as the other half of one of the pieces of metal on drain plug. Just towed/dropped car off today for investigation & repair. Car runs fine but smokes on initial start up. My Vette has cam, p1sc1 procharger, comp 921 springs, harland sharp rockers. I'll let you know what the corvette shop says

RFZ

my experience with big cams and aftermarket springs/retainers has made me stay with smaller cams with behive type springs and factory retainers on ls series engines....had the same problems 40 years ago as today...the valve train simply does not last/ work well/ stay together for a street driven dd...yeah, you can make big power but at the cost of reliabilty / greatly increased maintanace and burning your money

jtearp

Boosted - any updates?

Also, has anyone been able to identify the other pieces of metal that I unbent to make the circular piece of metal?

I am going to try to put new seals on this weekend. I have been looking around doing some reasearch. It looks pretty straight forward. The only thing I have not been able to find anything on is putting the rocker arms back on. Do they just need to be torqued to a certain spec? Is there any adjustments to be done?

BOO5TED

Yes jtearp I have an update looks like it was the valve stem seal that broke. The comp 921 springs are double springs & the interior spring seem to catch on the valve guide & just so happen to wear one down & eventually broke. I'll keep u posted

BOO5TED

They are also dropping oil pan to make sure there isn't residual metal