MTFCA Forum

I found this as I was doing an oil change. The oil pan plug washer is there for scale. Any idea where these might have originated from? Most of them are copper, one small one looks like polished steel and one looks like a charred bit of... something. Should I be alarmed and not run the engine at all?

Those copper bits are from the internal magneto. Plan to pull the engine and disassemble the trans and mag ring. You may get by with just a good cleanout, a replacement mag ring and corecting whatever it was that snagged to copper winding.

Does the magneto still work? Is there even a field coil even in there?
Many years ago, one of the several engines I put together for the nearly dozen model Ts I have put together for my use? I would have sworn that I cleaned everything THOROUGHLY! There should not have been anything left behind anywhere. The second time I changed the oil? Two sizable pieces of Babbitt along with about a half a thimbleful of sand-like stuff (mostly looked like more Babbitt) came out with the oil. Disgusted, but certain a bearing had begun to break apart, I pulled the bottom pan cover. I looked all over, small flashlight, a small mirror on a stick, I searched everywhere I could. I could not find anything that looked like it was beginning to come apart. Finally, I closed it up, refilled with oil and hoped for the best.
A couple thousand miles later, I was planning to take the car on a MTFCA national club tour, but it had developed a relatively minor transmission issue. Thinking back to those bits of Babbitt, I decided to pull the engine and check it over more closely. Engine apart on the table, the minor issue with the transmission was quickly fixed (I could have done it in the car), and I checked the fit of everything.
I never found any Babbitt in the engine that those bits could have come from. The only thing I could figure was that as well as I thought I had cleaned the pan (and everything else?), those bits must have been stuck somewhere from a past bearing failure. Most likely, they wedged into the area between the oil drain and the slotted washer riveted into the pan above it. I would have sworn I had scraped that out completely, but everywhere else I could easily see had nothing left sticking inside. I figured a couple thousand miles with thermal cycles, oil power washing provided by the flywheel, plus vibration, managed to shake the bits loose and into the drain itself.

I agree, those bits look like field coil ribbon bits. The question becomes, where did they come from, and how long have they been hiding?

When I first got my TT, the engine made a loud clicking.
One of the magnet plate screws had begun backing out. As the flywheel rotated across each coil the polarity changes one side to the other caused the plate to flip flop making the click.
But, between the flip flop of the plate, and the screw head backing out, it was just steadily shaving away the coil iron centers and eating into the copper windings.

With big chunks like that, something serious wrong is going on. Tear it down.