Copper shavings in Oil....

[ravens9273]

2008 RXP. Ran fine. Took it out the other day and after a couple of minutes something was just not right. Heard a little knocking in bottom end. Stop the ski right away and took it out. Ran through everything even supercharger and that was fine. Checked oil and had copper shavings in oil. I was searching online and all I could see that would be copper is the Crankshaft thrust washers.
Curious if anyone else knows what could be copper or if it is the thrust washers is this simply replacing them and cleaning all old shavings out of the bottom end or could a new crankshaft be in order?

 

[IDoSeaDoo]

Thrust washers or maybe even crank bearings. Time to rip her apart

 

[Coastiejoe]

I've not had 4-tec bearings in my hands yet, but I've had hundreds of other engine bearings. Rod, crank, thrust, and cam bearings. Most of them have a lead like covering over a copper base.

Unless the 4-tec is different than everything else in the world, then it could be crank, rod or thrust bearings. Until you pull the engine and get the crank out, I don't think you can figure it out b

 

[Sportster-2001-951C-Stock]

There's probably some amount of copper or bronze in the bearing shells and thrust shims in addition to tin and babbitt, it's standard practice to use these materials in 4-stroke engine bearings.

"In more modern practice, the crankshaft and connecting rod big end bearings in a modern automobile engine are made of a replaceable steel shell, keyed to the bearing caps. The inner surface of the steel shell is plated with a coating of bronze which is in turn coated with a thin layer of Babbitt metal as the bearing surface."

However, whenever you discover any kind of metal floating in your oil you're pretty much done. Have a look inside your oil filter paper pleats where most times a good bit will be trapped.

If the impeller has come unthreaded on it's shaft, it may be forcing the drive shaft into the crank shaft and this will force the crank shaft into the thrust bearing and tear it up.