I found some black plastic pieces (mostly rectangular with 1 half circle piece) while changing my oil pan gasket. They're pretty big. I was taking pictures of them when my phone went full retard, but I'll try to get some pictures.

Any ideas?

My guess would be timing chain tensioners, but I haven't had a VQ apart yet..

well hello. lol, has it been running funny? like did you notice anything different at all?

Hardened plastic? Or rubber

Maybe a chain guide.. That's my educated guess after just doing the 3.0 timing on a 3.5!

It 'kinda' looks like it would be part of the cam chain tensioners/guides. But I doubt they fit through the oil channels... I just sealed up the timing chain cover on my 3.0 today. And there's not a whole lot of space for something that large to come out of there.

But on the other hand, I have no clue

That could only come from the timing chain area which is probably a guide. But I am curious about the metal piece there because it looks like a curved nail....

Its all plastic.


Is it a huge concern? Should I be pulling my timing cover off soon to find out what happened?

If you aren't having issues then I wouldn't worry about it. It looks like just part of a guide, which wouldn't really hurt much. Now saying that, you may still want to peek in there and see what's missing

Unrelated, but maybe not...just use black RTV on the oil pan instead of a gasket.
No leaks ever again.

I just thought about it and I'm hearing some 'clicking' noise. I think I may crack open the timing cover to see what's up.