1996 2.2 with 166K
Changing timing belt and swapping engines around so I decided to re-seal the oil pan. In cleaning up the pan I found 3, thin, pieces of metal in a half circle (broken). Metal in a pan always throws up a flag so I started researching and asking questions. A Subaru buddy of mine thinks they are the spring washers in the rocker arms. I haven't had a change to pull the rocker arm covers and take a peak to verify. They are a clean break, no discoloration.
Questions:
1. How did these break? (no discoloration)
2. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being ka-boom) how bad can this be?
3. Anyone ever seen this before?
I own 2, 96 2.2's. I like them, just hate the valves (can't adjust the 96 valves - most anyways from 96).
I'm not really wanting to dump much more into this particular engine as I was thinking of re-building/re-placing it in 40k or 4-5 years. I need reliability, but when it comes down to it I'm limited on funds (or cheap, depending on how you look at it).
Thanks!