Metal non ferrous flake in filter

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Getonit

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Mark
Did the first oil change on my new to me plane and the filter had 2 tiny flakes in with a total size of 1/8" by 1/8" for both pieces, very very thin. Engine is a IO-550 with about 400 SMOH. Sending oil off to analysis, mechanic said it shouldn't be doing that with this low time of engine, but thoughts are to wait for analysis to come back and then fly another 25 hours and see what results of oil change are, unless the oil analysis is really bad.

I want some one to reassure me that this is normal.....please....or at least tell me it isn't really that bad.....or the hard honest truth.
 
Should we assume the flakes were silver in color? I imagine if they were copper or reddish in any way, that would have been mentioned.
 
Valve guide, maybe piston pin. My guess is oil analysis won't tell you anything straining the oil into a coffee filter won't. They can't tell what part it's from, only that it's bronze.

I'd run it and check again. I just finished tearing apart a 100hr 540 that came in for lots of fine bronze in the filter. Nothing wrong. The oil cooler wasn't flushed before they installed the engine.
 
timwinters said:
My god, who's going to pay for that?
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The customer. $$ The same customer who a month later had one of their pilots forget to replace the dipstick in a 5hr engine. $$$ The same customer that pulled and shipped an engine back because of an ignition problem that couldn't be fixed by swapping the mag, harness and plugs. Turns out they swapped a bad mag with another bad mag. $ :mad2:

It gets to the point where it's a pride thing. You don't care about the money from repairing them, you just want to see one of your engines make TBO without an 'induced' problem.
 
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