In-sump issues are:-

Floppy oil-pump drive chain

Chrome missing from magnetic drain plug tip

Suspected sump-suck

Woke up this mornin’ (actually this morning’, yesterday) thinkin ‘bout the blues.

The blues in question being a very few flakes of what looked like blue paint, stuck to my oil pump strainer, along with some crunchy flakes of what looked like hard varnish (the engine had some varnish before I changed the oil mix recipe),

There is no blue paint on the car, though here in Taiwan it’s THE standard colour for light commercials, one of those odd Confucious-he-say things.

Where DID they come from? I think my sump might suck.

Last time I had the sump off (a bit of a palaver on this car) maybe 6 years ago my RTV silicone had gone off so I didn’t use any, and it didn’t leak, so I didn’t worry about it. Hadn’t thought of negative crankcase pressure drawing dust in. THE HORROR!

Chinese New Year so impossible to buy any Automotive RTY silicone (difficult at any time), so I re-did it with some very old runny black Pertex stuff which probably wont gap-fill well and might make the sump difficult to remove. Best I could do.

Oil pump chain looked floppy last time but I found a Youtube video of a new one that looked the same so I didn’t worry about it. Now, 6 years later, I do. Difficult to measure with car on stands but if I can get one at non-exorbitant cost I’ll just replace it.

Do these little oil-pump chain drives often fail? Engine seizure would be close behind. Perhaps meantime a buzzer to back up the oil pressure light might make a quick shut-off response more likely?

Wouldn’t mind if there was no chrome at all on my (presumably aftermarket) sump plug, but don’t like the idea of hard bits of chrome going into the oil. How about dipping it in epoxy?