Magnetic Drain Plug

[Sanjøy]

Saw this on EPs Christmas mailer, anyone used one before? Not planning on getting one just curious.

http://www.eliseparts.com/products/show ... rain-plug/

[woody]

Saw this on EPs Christmas mailer, anyone used one before? Not planning on getting one just curious.

http://www.eliseparts.com/products/show ... rain-plug/

Used to be the done thing in A series with the gearbox in sump. Works to a point.

Similar things In aircraft to detect bearing degradation; but they're regularly checked without oil loss. Doubt you'd want to drop the engine oil every to check the plug all that often?

[fd]

The first bits to end up in the oil are generally non ferrous (the bearings), by the time there is steel on the magnet it's way too late . . . it's very depressing/expensive when you remove a mag sump plug and it's covered in machined metal . . .

Pointless . . .

[David]

The first bits to end up in the oil are generally non ferrous (the bearings), by the time there is steel on the magnet it's way too late . . . it's very depressing/expensive when you remove a mag sump plug and it's covered in machined metal . . .

Pointless . . .

Have to agree with Fergus.

If you are really keen, then cutting open your oil filter (not with a hacksaw!) and hanging up the element to 'drip dry' can be very enlightening. Under magnification you can check the shape of metal particles which gives you a good idea of what they are - bearing material tends the become flakes after passing through the oil pump, cam, bore, or ring fragments tend hold there shape and are more 'wire like'. In the Duratec the particle count peaked when I first used full RPM and then dropped to steady 1 or 2 (identifiable)metal particles per filter segment per 1000 miles. The biggest contaminant tends to be from gasket and foreign bodies which presumably enter via the air filter and work they way past the rings. Hopefully, if the particle count suddenly goes up I know there's an issue - although most failures are usually sudden.

[Rich H]

But only useful when you track and log it all regularly...

[dirkpitt]

The only function i can see is that whatever the filter does not catch the magnet will assist but attracting any missed FOD. The filter should be designed to block and hold all FOD up to a certain size.......like what the others have said…….

if i remember from my uni days….we reversed engineered a k series engine and the web bearing shells where made from to materials aluminum and tin sandwiched together .......i assumed that the aluminum would be the bedding in material and would wear in until the polished web would reach the tin material underneath and then the big end as you could call it would be as intended......as i remember there were a few surprises to what the materials were in the k series engine.....e.g. the piston rings where a surprise when we took it to the electron spectroscopy to find out what it was....turned out to be, steel with a chrome outer strip!........the wrist pin was the jewel in the crown of material and manufacture....it consisted of martensitic steel crystal formation and quenched in oil, then highly polished and machined....the crank was interesting too.. this was spheroidal graphite grey iron....and so on...

Ok, waffling on a bit …wondered of topic a bit, I digress…….yeah unless the magnetic plug was before the oil filter and you are able to remove to inspect, a little pointless in my estimation.

[BiggestNizzy]

..and so on...

please continue

[Rich H]

Alternative is a harddrive magnet on the oil filter.

[dirkpitt]

..and so on...

please continue

christ biggestnizzy are you sure! all a bit boring really, plus it was quite a while ago, so the details are fuzzy.....i guess i can only tell you what we found when stripping back the pieces...the whole thing was for some course work so its a little rough around the edges...looking back now, wish we went really went to town on the k-series engine...
however, i will see what i remember.....okay if i recall the k-series design origins came from motorsport if not design by an ex racer himself ...i was one of the first sandwich type engines held together with engine bolts that went almost the entire length of the engine, manufactured …if I remember reading something along the lines that was new and unheard of for the time, however, you would probably know more than me on this…….the casted head and body of the engine we found to be a material LM25 alloy and the piston head was also something similar LM24…think the difference was that the piston head had more silicone in it to help resisted the expansion rates………but not sure. The crank as I said was grey iron with balls of graphite, I believe there is also a graphite flack used……I believe rover later moved to a steel crank because as the engine developed and produced higher torque and power the grey iron was too soft for such increases……..can’t remember want the cylinder sleeves where made of however remember they were glued in plus manufactured using a centrifugal method of spinning the material at Tg phase….i think this would help to pull all the impurities out to the outer edges and to generate a near perfect cylinder……….conrods and cams where good hardened steel and dint hit us with any surprises….
Like I said, I would have to dig into my uni files to get anymore…….but the k-series wasn’t the low-cost quickly engineered and manufactured engine we first thought…the end!

[kerryxeg]

The 911 came with these fitted, not sure if this was standard or a mod, but I've never seen any metal on them pre or post rebuild. It's information, but not sure what how useful or how I would use it.

Kerry

[philthy]

I've fitted an extra strong magnetic plug to my new engine to catch any pieces of metal left in after the honing etc, it's not a necessity but every little helps as it doesn't take much to kill a bearing.