Thread: Metal found in oil pan

Alright i bought a 96 200sx ser. Found this sitting in the oil pan. What the hell is it?

Valve shim yo.

It sits directly on top of the valve, surrounded by a spring retainer. The rocker arm contacts this directly, pushing down the valve. It provides a flat surface for the rocker arm to contact and rotate on. They come in different thicknesses to make sure the rocker arm is level (two valve per rocker arm) and that the rocker arm is raised enough to rest against the cam lobe while off-lobe.

If you car isn't making horrendous clicking noises from the valve cover area I'd predict the engine had thrown or broken a rocker arm in the past and the person who fixed it never found one of the valve shims. It made it's way down to the oil pan and sat there until you found it just now.

Either that or you've lost a shim and your valve train is probably making all sorts of noises. If it's not, I guess it's still possible you've thrown a rocker arm and you haven't noticed the lack in power, and there's no sound associated with it.

What size is that? I might need it.

thanks for the quickness. didnt seem to make any noises up there. And i've only had the car for a few days so i wouldnt notices lack of power. should i worry about it?

they dont put them in there for no reason lol - considering how much work it is to put it back where it belongs, I'd do the work but that's just me. Couple hours topps - pull the vc, find out which one is missing the peice, pull off the guides, ziptie the cams/timing chain, take off the retainers, pull off the rocker witout the chiclit under it, tack it all back...not too difficult, just time consuming.

Edit - just hope that it's only one, because heaven forbid if you accidentally switch a couple - then you really got issues.

It would have me worried. It is very easy to check and make sure it's extra, and not needed.

Remove the valve cover and then you can get a great look at the rocker arms and the tops of the valves. You will notice at the top of each valve there is one of these shims. Half of them are perfect puck shaped, the other halve have a channel cut out of them like the one you found. Each rocker arm should be resting on top of two valves. one valve will have the puck shaped shim, the other will have a shim with a groove cut out of it. Look at the tops of all the valves and if they all have the appropriate shims then you're all set. If one is missing you should notice easily.

Cheap insurance. Easy to check.

If one is missing and you're lucky enough not to have broken a rocker arm or something you can probably replace it. canx2k's instructions above are a bit more complicated than they need to be. You don't have to remove the valve spring retainer. You don't really have to do much. Just rotate the engine until the cam lobe is pointing away from the rocker arm you need to lift. Then loosen all the bolts 75% of the way that are holding that cam down and it will raise up enough for you to lift the rocker arm out of the way and put the shim back. Then tighten the camshaft back down (don't forget to do this very carefully and in the correct order as not to snap the cam). Put valve cover back on. Done.

hmm - the things you learn - Ida done it the hard way - lesson for me too!

Isn't there also a spring compressor made just for this?

thanks. gonna pick up a vc gasket right now.

Nah, the retainer is still holding the spring in place.

OP- If you find one missing, you just need to loosen or remove the cam caps, raise the cam, put it back, and retighten the cam caps.

Be sure you follow FSM procedure. It's easy to overtighten and snap cam cap bolts. If you aren't familiar with removing cams, do some reading before you jump in there.