Gold flakes in oil..

[Hudson.]

Changed a cracked sump on my recently purchased 78' CB550K, so drained the oil and didnt see anything worrying in there. Replaced sump, decided to change the oil filter for good measure.

Removed the oil filer housing from the front of the engine to find the remaining oil thats in there has a fair amount of fine gold (i guess brass), flakes in it.

What could this be from? Im pretty concerned now as i just want to use the bike but have a feeling i'll need to tear the engine down now..

The bike has 54k miles on it, unsure if the engines ever been rebuilt. History from previous owner includes a new primary chain and replacement top end..

[hairygit]

Possibly thrust washers in the gear clusters?

[Trigger]

You struck Gold  This could mean that it has been run low on oil at one point but, hard to tell as there are two different colour gold in a engine.
1) as Hairy has already mentioned.

2) can be from the con rod shells.

Is there any dust/ flakes in the sump ? Also I have seen Gold dust in oil when someone has re-built a engine and not cleaned it all out from before.

Bronze dust is Connecting rod Bushing failure. Not good.
 Silver dust (non magnetic) is Clutch debris
 Sliver flakes is Clutch and case debris
 Black flakes is Clutch plate parts (fiber)
 Dark silver flakes (magnetic!) are gear parts....not good.

If it is flakes, try washing and let the flakes dry out, they may turn silver.

[Hudson.]

Thanks guys! Just had a closer look, they're actually silver shavings (looked gold in the oil, rookie)

They're not magnetic, when i removed the sump there were no shavings, only saw them in the oil filter housing.

This is some of the stuff that came out the filter housing:




And random shots from underneath the engine..






Could it be clutch debris?

[Bryanj]

That much debris I would be removing the rocker cover and checking the cam bearings, also down the cam chain tunnel to see if the cam chain has been wearing the sides due to incorrect tensioning