Background: I recently discovered that my drivers side timing chain guide broke. One half of it is still intact and attached. I was able to fish a large chunk of it out of the engine, but I suspect there are more pieces that fell down into the oil pan. My local mechanic will be replacing the chain with a dual row conversion kit I got from 22re performance. He is going to remove the head to install the new chain, but he is not touching the oil pan. He said that I should not worry about the pieces that broke off, as they will just sit down there, but that if I really wanted he could pull the oil pan also (for more $$$ of course).

Question: I am unfamiliar with how things are arranged down there, and I am concerned about having plastic pieces in my engine. My mechanic says they just get caught on the screen and that it's fine to leave them until I need to remove the oil pan for some reason. I can't really afford the extra money to have him do the oil pan, nor do I have the tools right now to do it myself. Should I trust him and just leave the chunks down in there peacefully resting for now?

Thanks..

 

 

I had the same half of the driver's side guide break off & decided to drop the pan which is a PITA on IFS trucks. The broken piece was laying in the bottom of the pan intact and would not have caused any issues at all if I left it there.

 

My OCD would have me pulling the engine to remove the pan.
But as others have said: it won't cause an issue in 99.9% of cases.

It's kinda like the "red tip of differential fluid bottle" fell into my diff.
OCD people: remooove iiiit!
Everyone else: "It will just get mashed to bits. Leave it."

 

I agree with the above.

The right way to do the timing chain replacement is to remove the oil pan, clean it out, reseal and reinstall. That is the way I would personally do it if I had to replace the chain on my engine.

Like ev13wt said, my OCD would force me to remove the pan, but realistically, it would probably be just fine to leave it alone. Any pieces small enough to circulate through the engine is likely already in the filter and the larger chunks just stay in the pan.

 

 

Haha that's all you found?
I found chunks of an old timing chain in the oil pan of my old 84