Story is.... driving the maverick on the freeway the valve stud broke... replaced with nice ARP studs... coincidentally, noticed that I have a leak in the back of the intake... removed that and put a new intake gasket on.... go to drain the oil out and I find this: Basically, it's a check ball of sorts...a little spring and some metal shrapnel....
I'm no engine expert, but is there anywhere there could be a check valve in a oil passage? That's the only thing I can think of that would use a spring and a ball, like that. ??....
Looks like part of a mechanical vacuum switch... but then again those ball bearing on a spring check valves are used on about a bajillion different sorts of mechanical switches. I'm not exactly fluent on every piece of hardware in a car, but that sort of thing is used for a lot of stuff. Anyone know of any mechanical switches in the oil system?
filter is what my engine builders guess was but he doubts it. not from the oil pump, it doesn't have a check ball. does the holley have a check ball like that which could have fallen in?
If it came from fuel pump or carb, it would never end up in the oil. It would flop around and end up out the exhaust. Likely after doing a little bit of damage along the way. Pistons and cylinders and heads and valves don't like that stuff bouncing around in there.
What kind of lifters were you running? That would have to come from valvetrain, or introduced with the oil (or filter).
It could have came from the back side of the fuel pump and fell right down into the oil pan. It didn't or couldn't have came from the carb or intake. It would have beat around on top of a piston until it spit it out. I don't know what the oil filter by-pass valve looks like on the car, but you might want to check on that also.
