Ball Bearing in Cylinder!

[dbw1966]

OK, who has the brain trust on this one? My A6 BRE engine has been loosing coolant and has water in the oil. But other than that running fine.

Garage just removed a glow plug to pressure test the engine, and found a ball bearing in one pot!!!!

Ideas?

Any ideas appreciated!

Cheers
Dave

 

[adamss24]

There are no ball bearings in the engine, if anything, i think your mechanic/garage has put it there ! The BRE does suffer with porous heads and oil cooler/ EGR cooler failure but getting a compression test it's not how you test for a head gasket failure ! However, a leak down test is much more common with loss of compression, hard starts and uneven idle, caused by chipped valves, bent rods or leaky piston rings ! I think you should take your car out of that garage ASAP !

 

[kite]

What about a bearing from the turbo Chris !

 

[adamss24]

The turbo "bearing" is just a bronze bush with machined holes/channels and the shaft rides on a "pillow" of oil ! Only the later ball bearing turbos have ceramic ball bearings but no VAG tdi of that vintage was ever fitted with one !

 

[mixxy]

Not used a old school egr block with a ball bearing, would this somehow be able to make its way into the inlet

 

[CHEZ]

hi!
ok been reading this and trying to get my head around the fact that a bearing was found where it was!
did they find a "ball" or an actual ball bearing in there? (i.e. an assembled ball filled bearing with balls rotating within 2 seperate rings?)
i work in the bearing industry by the way so know all about bearings as it happens!
if it is a ball only, particularly a small one like the size of the end of a glow plug, i would guess, that a glow plug end was your culprit!
and that the spherical end bit has parted company from the glow plug and there you go!
if it was an actual ball raced bearing however, i do not have a scooby!
but, could you get some pics up either way?

 

[ScottD3]

How did they know it was in there?

The hole for the glow is not that big to spot a bearing, is it?