Mouse poo in my oil !!

[billjam]

OK, OK! I know it's not mouse poo, but where the hell is this stuff coming from?



I just did an oil change on my 930 and found this in my oil tank. The pellets are about 1.5mm by 4-5 mm long and look like carbon or charcoal. It is not coke from cooked oil in the turbo - I've been there and solved that problem.

Naturally I pulled out the oil tank and flushed it clean, but I can't find where these little pellets are coming from. They look like the kind of stuff you might find in a fuel system charcoal canister, but there doesn't seem to be one of those in the engine bay.
I thought they might have come from the breather canister that sits just in front of the oil filler, so I took that apart to check. No joy there - it's just an empty plastic container for collecting water vapour I guess.

Ideas anyone?

[JJ 911SC]

Hamster feed.

[steely]

Does this help?
This is the craziest thing I've ever encountered in an engine

Check your air box.

[aigel]

Originally Posted by steely

Does this help?
This is the craziest thing I've ever encountered in an engine

Check your air box.

+1

Neat stuff!

G

[billjam]

Thanks for that link Dan.
It's pretty obvious now what they are, but what I can't figure out is how they get from the carbon canister into the bottom of my oil tank. None in the engine BTW.

Also, I don't have a standard air cleaner anymore, but all the original breather hoses still connect to it pretty much as they did before. I had the filter apart a few weeks back and there was no sign of mouse poo anywhere in that area.
I guess there must be a hose from the carbon canister that hooks into the engine breather or oil tank breather and its getting in that way.

Looks like some homework tonight.

[billjam]

I have just been flicking through all my manuals and the only mention I can find for the carbon canister is in PET.



I don't recall seeing this anywhere on the car. Maybe it's under a fender somewhere?

If anyone has a copy or a link, I'd really like to see the plumbing diagram for the fuel tank breather system and the canister so I can be sure my connections are OK.

[steely]

I don't know if the 930 is plumbed differently.
Canister is fwd of the oil tank - if yours is empty - that's a clue.
My guess is they were sucked into the air box, and some made their way from the back of the throttle body to the oil tank(?) It's a stretch of a theory, but if they made it into the combustion chamber, I imagine they would have disintegrated or been blown out the exhaust.

[billjam]

When I got home, I had a look under the right rear fender and sure enough, there's the carbon canister tucked way up in there. Never noticed it before!
I took it out and it still seems pretty full. One of the hoses (A) from the canister was full of carbon so I traced it back into the engine bay where it was tee'd into a bigger breather hose (B) that runs between the oil separator (C) and the air filter (D).
Normally, hoses A and B are connected into the back of the OE air cleaner housing.

It seems that some carbon pellets had found their way along this route to the oil separator. Then they must have dropped down through the separator and out the bottom hose (E) that connects straight to the oil tank.
Hopefully, the few that got through there just sat in the bottom of the oil tank.

[na2ub]

Nice sticker on your intercooler.