metal on oil drain plug, pic's

well I changed my oil yesterday & found a gob of metal on the drain plug. took it back to the shop that put bull gear bearings/idler gear & power steering pump in. checked it & called me & told me it's the bull gear bearing, but not sure what caused it to fail. less than 25,000 miles on work. we used my original bull gear with new bearings. any idea's what caused this? shop is going to tear it down next week & try to determine what happened.

 

Yes ser 60 ddec 3 I took it in to find where minor amounts of metal on drain plug was coming from. when shop inspected gear train fist time, they said all looked good & bull gear was good too. I told them to put new bull gear bearings in anyway. it was then the shop called me & said they found where the metal came from & told me it was a good thing I demanded the replacement of the bull gear bearing, cause the race was pitted bad, but you could not tell by any other means other than taking apart & looking. so they put in just the bull gear bearing, along with idler,gear, while in there. he say's it may be a defective bearing or the bull gear itself may be bad. but it is the same original bull gear that was in engine. so I am thinking it would have to be the bearing itself, or the installation of it? on page 3 on this link http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...teen-wheelers/187067-ser-60-gear-train-3.html you will see what was found & where metal was coming from the first time. replacing the bearing & race I thought should of solved the problem. if it is the bull gear itself, then why not this much metal earlier? only very small amounts & after the bearing replacement, than huge amount. was getting metal on plug for more than 2 years. no one could find source. had inframe done at 1.3 mil miles & shop showed me scrape marks on piston liners, said that is where the metal is coming from. that was 100,000 miles ago. same amount of metal was still on oil plug at oil change. then I told them to check gear train, so nothing that would indicate metal, until they check the bull gear bearing & race. put new bearing & race & now have 20 times more metal.

 

yeah, but if it is a bearing, the analysis will not tell you which bearing will it. there are more than one bearing with the same metal content correct? with this much metal, I am sure they will see where it came from when they get front cover off.

 

thank you for the link, but that looks like it pertains to installing reman bull gear & their failures. mine was never changed out. it is the original.

 

I am leaning towards the new bearing, & race. not the bull gear itself. the downtime. hurts , especially this time of year.