Help look what i found in my lower oil pan

[ernaldmerican]

Decided to drop lower oil pan as it was rusting pretty bad. I found (see pictures) pieces of yellow / white plasitc in the bottom of the pan. Any ideas what it might be?

 

[ernaldmerican]

Forgot to add its a 1998 v6 SOHC explorer 4 dr 4x4

 

[coppe]

timing chain tensioners plastic.

 

[coppe]

more likely front timing chain. Do a search for death rattle or rattle of death.

 

[Spdrcer34]

Tensioners FTL!!!

Good luck with that!

Ryan

 

[Paraphoe]

Oh MAN that sucks. Godspeed my friend.

 

[my98nnj]

Next up on your list is the front of the motor.

Happy new year!

 

[ernaldmerican]

Got it. I have 250,000 miles on it and have no idea when it broke but the car is running fine. If I understand it there are two issues with this being broken. One is the parts floating in the oil, maybe I got all of them when it broke but who knows. The second is the timing chain now can move around more on the one side of the motor where this tensioner sits between the crank and cam shaft and thus possible skip a tooth and take out the motor. Is that my danger? I understand what skipping a tooth or even breaking the chain means, but thats the ramification of not going in and replacing, correct?

 

[96eb96]

If the oil pan is that rusty your brake lines are probably ready to pop too..definately worth inspecting them.