This is exactly what happened to my 1st Passat.
Long story short (my whole deal has been well documented here on this forum) I purchased my now daily driver, a 1998 GLS V6 5sp manual FWD in July of 2006.
I bought the car knowing it had some serious issues with the engine. At the time I had no idea what the problem was.
I drove the car for 3 months and the valve train finally let loose. Parked the car for a number of years and finally one day got back at it.
When I took the valve covers off the passengers side CCT had the plastic shoes completely gone. Then the oil pan came off. The plastic shoes got all ground up into chunks and sucked into the oil pick-up screen, just like yours.
I was lucky and didn't experience any cam bearing journal damage. However, both CCT's and all the cam followers were complete junk.
What happens is, conventional motor oil when left unchecked / neglected will attack the plastic shoes on the CCT's and cause them to become very brittle. The bits and pieces bounce around in valve train for a while until they get flushed down into the oil pan and then sucked up into the pick-up screen.
I have seen other cars with similar issues. Plastic in the oil pan but all the shoes and oil tensioner is all intact. That comes from your dumbass Joe the Hack mechanic that replaces the CCT shoes but doesn't bother going after all that foreign material left inside the engine. And then he charges you an assload of money for doing a job well done.
It's exactly why many of us here do our own wrenching. Most mechanics are like politicians, they can't be trusted.
When this happens and the CCT(s) is replaced or repaired, that is the time to switch over to full synthetic oil. Synthetic oil does not cause any issues with the plastic shoes.
There are a total of 3 pieces of plastic inside the 1.8 engine. two pieces on the CCT (shoe on top and bottom) the other piece of plastic is the chain tensioner on the oil pump.
New oil pumps have a revised piece of plastic from the original design.
I would remove all plastic that can be found, I'd even use a shop-vac on the head to suck out any left over pieces. Swap out the CCT for a new one. Put it all back together.
Put in some cheap conventional oil, new oil filter and a full can of Sea-Foam and run that engine for a few days. Drain the oil and put in fresh Synthetic oil and oil filter of your choice and you should be good to go.
Long story short (my whole deal has been well documented here on this forum) I purchased my now daily driver, a 1998 GLS V6 5sp manual FWD in July of 2006.
I bought the car knowing it had some serious issues with the engine. At the time I had no idea what the problem was.
I drove the car for 3 months and the valve train finally let loose. Parked the car for a number of years and finally one day got back at it.
When I took the valve covers off the passengers side CCT had the plastic shoes completely gone. Then the oil pan came off. The plastic shoes got all ground up into chunks and sucked into the oil pick-up screen, just like yours.
I was lucky and didn't experience any cam bearing journal damage. However, both CCT's and all the cam followers were complete junk.
What happens is, conventional motor oil when left unchecked / neglected will attack the plastic shoes on the CCT's and cause them to become very brittle. The bits and pieces bounce around in valve train for a while until they get flushed down into the oil pan and then sucked up into the pick-up screen.
I have seen other cars with similar issues. Plastic in the oil pan but all the shoes and oil tensioner is all intact. That comes from your dumbass Joe the Hack mechanic that replaces the CCT shoes but doesn't bother going after all that foreign material left inside the engine. And then he charges you an assload of money for doing a job well done.
It's exactly why many of us here do our own wrenching. Most mechanics are like politicians, they can't be trusted.
When this happens and the CCT(s) is replaced or repaired, that is the time to switch over to full synthetic oil. Synthetic oil does not cause any issues with the plastic shoes.
There are a total of 3 pieces of plastic inside the 1.8 engine. two pieces on the CCT (shoe on top and bottom) the other piece of plastic is the chain tensioner on the oil pump.
New oil pumps have a revised piece of plastic from the original design.
I would remove all plastic that can be found, I'd even use a shop-vac on the head to suck out any left over pieces. Swap out the CCT for a new one. Put it all back together.
Put in some cheap conventional oil, new oil filter and a full can of Sea-Foam and run that engine for a few days. Drain the oil and put in fresh Synthetic oil and oil filter of your choice and you should be good to go.
