bought a 604 and this was in it....

[blue93trd]

I bought a 604 two months ago. I got the plumbing hooked up and decided to pull the oil drain plug. I had to literally get a pair of plier to get the bolt out of the oil pan... Can anyone tell me what all this is???

[brad hibbard]

the flat steel is a broken locating shim and the small spring is a tension spring from a valve seal

None of this is what we want to see when we pull the drain plug but with the old style valve springs it was common and "usually" once you fix the valvetrain issues there is no further damage

you should switch this engine to the new bee hive springs and avoid this problem and others in the future

let me know if you need more assistance

Brad
www.race-1.com
330-540-7223

[blue93trd]

What should my next step be? how bad is this and can the motor be ran like it is? The guy I bought the motor from will not give me my money back and said that the motor is fine.

[collateralDamage]

I would at least take it to an authorized rebuilder and have the pan pulled and make sure there is no debris in the pickup, take a look at the bearings and have the valvetrain inspected. I think that would be good policy for buying a used engine regardless of what was found on the drain plug anyway. A couple hundred $ could go a long way...

That being said, I wouldn't call the engine junk or blame anyone yet for selling you a bad egg. Those parts commonly fail as brad said. You're not the first guy to find that on the drain plug. It does speak clearly of the former owner's maintenance program though.

[stock car driver]

What should my next step be? how bad is this and can the motor be ran like it is? The guy I bought the motor from will not give me my money back and said that the motor is fine.

Brad told you what it needs. Replace the valve springs, while your doing that youll be replacing the locators and seals.

I got my parts from Brad and its a simple enough job to do yourself.

[A ron]

I pulled my plug and found the same thing this morning.......this stuff ain't meant for a poor man like me haha