Here's the story:

One of my buddies has a 04 GSX-R 1000. He's not the best on regular maintenance, and one day when he decided to check the oil hefound that he was a quart low. So he added the oil and headed off to work. All of a sudden he heard this ticking sound, and it eventually gets soloud during his commute that he pulls over and calls someone to pick him and his bike up.

So I decided to drain his oil and filter it through a rag, and sure enough there are metal shavings in the oil. Soooo....what does this mean? Could this be any number of things or is it most likely a crank shaft bearing or something like that?

 

GSXR

nuff said.

 

Shavings are normal. The size of the shavings matters.

Would you say they're shavings or small chunks?

 

does the ticking increase with the rpm?? cuz if the oil was low or oldbefore then it could have bent a rod and when this ticking increases to really loud your effed. It happened to my car actually.. i know its different but a guy had it in his bike a few months ago on a post( there was a sound clip). He lost oil pressure somehow. I didn't know when it happened to my car so i had to replace the engine.. but if u catch it soon enough then its like a $600 dollar repair. It's just experience i've had... it could be lots of things tho.

 

Not in any of my motors, I usually put one of those rare earth magnets on my drain plug before I change my oil, and I have never seen metal 'shavings'. My old vette had a bunch of plastic timing chain crap in the pan, but no metal in that 37 year old motor either.

Ticking sounds usually come from a top end problem like valve clatter, but my guess is a tranny situation if there was metal involved.

Side note: I raced a gsxr once when I had a 5.0 mustang, it was kicking my *** until a HUGE flame shot out of the pipe. I never saw a motor blow up before, my guess was it swallowed a valve...it was cool.

 

There are vacuum lines above the exhaust manifold/headers/whatever where it comes out of the motor that like to fly off on nearly every suzuki product ever made. They make a nice ticking sound when theycome loose.

Really, the only way to permanently fix it is to trade it in at the nearest authorized Honda dealer.

 

This issue may not be able to be solved over the internet. When you say it was not maintained very well, that about sums it up. I bet he could not remember the last time he changed the oil either.The engine may haveto be torn down and inspected.

 

Well my friend, how do you suppose engines wear out then?

Shavings exist in all used engine oil.

It's a fact...you can take it FWIW or not.

Like I said (but you prolly didn't read it all) "Shavings are normal. The size of the shavings matters."

Try putting your magnet on the drain plug for a half hour or so and see what you get.

 

Visible shavings draining out or sitting in the pan are unheard of in a normal motor. Motors WEAR out, yes there may be 'solid'particles (as opposed to molecules or ions), but they are on the micron (tens of microns)level and on a magnet will feel like a sludge or fuzz (see link). Considering a motor may spin afew of billion times in its life, the loss of a visible speck of metal friction surface indicates failure, not wear. Imagine a few billion visible specks of metal, one for each normal rotation.

Almost all, if not all parts never even touch each other, they ride on a film of oil. They wear out in a very subtle fashion, but they fail catastrophically when they touch.

This link explains what I am saying, it may be old fashioned, but 30 years ago a lot of stuff was thought up because there weren't the high quality oils and alloys we have today.

http://w6rec.com/duane/bmw/trans/index.htm

 

shavings are normal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahahahahahahahah omg
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