Found rod bearing sitting in the oil pan

[TTA197]

Has anyone here ever found a rod bearing sitting in the oil pan? This what I found when I removed my oil pan to replace the rear main seal on my TTA. Now here's where it gets confusing. I removed all of the connecting rod caps to see which one was missing the bearing and all of them were in place and spotless. I didn't have any engine noise at all and everthing inside the engine is undamaged and clean.

This bearing I found is a little bent and has several deep scars. I compared it to the bearings on the connecting rods and it's identical in size, but I can't figure out where it came from.
I would appreciate anyone's input on this and I'll post this thread in the TR tech section also. Thanks, Nicholas.

[1badTTA]

My questions are
a) what does it say on the back of the bearing?

b) what does it say on the back of the rest of your bearings?

My guess was that someone changed your rad bearings and dropped it in the pan without noticing it, but it looks like you have a really low mileage TTA so it would have to have been probably by PAS or maybe even GM. Who knows? Very interesting though.

[Gokou]

Sounds like a friday or a monday car.

That's slightly concerning... With that low of mileage I'd have to think that an assembly worked dropped one in there, and it's scraped up from sliding around in the pan and hitting the baffles/pickup. But yes, check to make sure you installed rod bearings aren't oversizers...

[TTA197]

The numbers on the bearing I found sitting in the oil pan are as follow: 18005282 and below that number was :311j832. I didn't look at the numbers on the connecting rod bearings when I had the caps off because I didn't want to disturb anything.

As a side note, I'm 100% sure that I was the first one to open up the engine since it left PAS/ GM because it still had the white creamy rtv stuck to the pan gasket and the oil pan at the rear main cap area.

Anyway, I think it was just some moron who assembled the engine and didn't bother to retrieve the bearing when he dropped it and just grabbed another one.

[Lee_Burough]

This piece in the crankcase reminds me of a rod cap nut I found in 1967. It was in the engine of my MINT 21k 1958 chevy impala 2dr HT.

I guess it was suposed to be in the engine....Just not loose in the crankcase. We discovered it after a sharp stop for a red light. The nut was wedged between the bottom of the piston skirt and the top of the crank. The engine siezed. No missing nuts.

I don't know about you, but, I'd rather get my spare parts at the parts counter.

It happens, not as often as it used to.

[TTA197]

Lee I'll have to agree with you on the exrta parts statement. I'm just glad there was no damage done inside the engine because of this. You should have seen the look on my face when I first saw the bearing sitting in the oil pan. I turned white as a ghost . Nicholas...........

[The Swede]

Now i'm 100% sure that there where Mexicans mounting our cars......

My car has wrong bird in the rear (black) and wrong center caps on the wheels (bird only) and i have heard about approx. 5 more had the wrong bird in the rear.

I can see those guys in front of me dropping a bearing and gives a **** about it...... the guy that mounted the emblems on the cars had an empty box and just grabbed another bird from another box......

Hehehehe..... guess we all are lucky that there where no more problems than some bearings dropped and wrong emblems on our cars.