Mysterious small metal flakes in oil...

Hey all! This morning I went down to the bike and gave it a bit of a service. Installed an aftermarket airfilter (unifilter) and did an oil filter and oil change. When draining the used oil from the collector tray I've discovered A LOT of tiny flakes and small pieces of metal about the size of a grain of sand or smaller. This has alarmed me as usually this means something has disintergrated in the engine, right?

The bike runs beautifully however the only thing that I can relate this to is a loose sound / knocking coming from the bike more noticably when I'm in neutral... and this seems to be only intermittant... I've had the bike for 1 1/2 years and this is its first oil change in my ownership. Any help would be appreciated cheers.

 

Obviously metal in your oil is cause for concern.
I noticed in your sig it said "owner of a 1982 xj650 rebuild". Could it be leftover from the rebuild?

Did the oil smell like gas when you changed it ? If so I'd check that petcock.

Year and a half between oil changes depending on how much you ride and the temp there, might change oil more often.

 

I think it could very well be left overs from the rebuild, I'm just unsure. I've definately left it a while between changes and was a little startled at the rubbish that came out... I'm thinking of draining it again tomorrow and refilling (leaving the oil filter in though) just to try and get any leftover rubbish out.

oh, no smell of fuel either...

 

Id change oil at least every 6 mo even if its not being run.
Oil has a habit of going bad and corroding things in bike engines after 6 mo.

Next time you drain the oil, drain it all, then get a tube from a squirt bottle
into the bottom of the crank case. Carefully without hitting the crankshaft or
anything else other than the bottom of the inside of the pan of the engine,
squirt a little solvent. Flush the bottom of the inside of the pan.
Make sure you dont hit anything else in there
IE dont hit anything with a bearing etc.

If you totally clean out the bottom of the pan and after refiilling, you still get chips, you are into ANOTHER rebuild. If you clean out and the chips
go away, you know it was leftover sludge in the bottom of the pan.

On the other hand, whoever did the rebuild SHOULD have cleaned all that
schmutz out of there during the rebuild.

Untill you get this sorted out, you need to seriously consider weekly oil
changes. Sorry to have to rain on your parade.
I hope it all resolves in a good way. OK to light a candle for you ?

 

Tex I appreciate the advice and will be doing as you say, please light the candle.

The only mechanical problem I've had was a stickey starter that would randonly turn itself on and off while I was in the middle of riding. I'd often stop and try to turn the bike off and the damn thing would be kicking over, resulting in my having to disconnect the battery to stop the starter motor turning over.... I finally fixed this by replacing a faulty solenoid, but not with out doing some damage it seems. The bike turns over perfectly now but a loose odd clucking noise in neutral appeared during that whole saga...

The flush tomorrow will tell me more...

 

Use a magnet to see if the flakes are magnetic.

By your last paragraph, metal could be from the starter clutch if it's been engaging while the engine is running.

A bit of noise from the engine is not unusual in neutral. No tension on anything lets things like clutch basket, primary chain and gear shafts still turn but with no pressure on them they rattle around a bit.

If it's a definate knocking,(usually under load) then that is something to be concerned about.

As said, a few 500k oil changes to fush the system out would be a good move.

 

ok so i'm new to this and may have just been worrying over nothing.

i gave the engine another oil change after a good warm up and no gunk or metal flecks were apparant. It looks like my worries were due to just a long long gap between oil changes. The slight clunking noise isn't around when the engine's under load and the whole system sounds smooth.

Oh and the new unifilter air filter sponge is lurvely.