Uh oh...found something bad in my oil pan. What "was" this?

Replacing oilpan before dropping engine onto the new and I found these at the bottom.

What was this?

Engine has been running fine. But this still does not look good.

 

Valve Keeper aka Lock. It keeps the valve from falling into the cylinder

 

So, this is where those two halves of valve locks snap into, to provide pressure to keep the valve up?

Can this be replaced?

I mean, can I order one and pull the head and replace the missing one?

Or do I need an entire new head?

 

Well, I have identified that it is on cylinder #4...

How bad is the piston going to look?

As I said, it ran fine the last time I drove it. Might have been missing a little, but nothing that sounded serious that would have gotten me suspicious.

 

never seen a valve keeper with holes in it like that. My first thought was the collar on the distributor to keep the shaft from pulling out and the roll pin goes through it.

 

That could be normal wear from the up and down movement. some valves will be lower then others depending on cam postion at the moment.

 

What would have caused this to break?

 

Was it ever a whole solid circle or is it machined as 2 pieces?

 

I have another distributor gear and it does look alot like that, and same size.

It was solid, and has broken at the holes.

 

did you pull the one out of the engine?

Not a valve keeper if it was solid. Pull up the distributor and see if there is a collar on the shaft where it meets the body.

 

Good call!

 

Again, what would cause THIS to break?

 

Weird that it broke. did you ever have a hard time getting dist in or out and had to use a hammer or pry bar?

 

None of the above.

 

Just one of those things i bet. if you wouldnt have pulled the pan youd probably still be running like that. Dont see it hurting anything.