Hi all. I have a 2000 F150 Supercab with a 4.6 V8 engine, and about 244,570+ miles on the odometer.I purchased the truck in 2004 with 129K miles on its odometer, and it's been a very good truck for me the past 21 years. The engine has been losing (burning?) oil for years, and in recent years I've been adding Lucas Oil Leak product to the oil, and including about 1 quart of the Lucas Oil Leak product when I do an oil change every 5K miles of 9-12 months. When I removed the drain plug to do an oil change yesterday, a 1" long, 3/8" round, tube (or sleeve?) was on the magnet end of my oil drain plug (as shown in the 2 pictures below). There was an additional washer looking piece of metal also attached to the magnet. I had just driven the old truck on the highway running at 70MPH prior to doing the oil change, and though it leaks exhaust fumes when cold and constantly turns on the Check Engine light for one thing or another typically having to do with a dirty or bad spark plug, or a dirty or clogged throttle body, or a faulty/bad coil/COP, the truck keeps running. At first I thought the piece of tubing might be off the dip stick pipe, but then I thought maybe it's a sleeve off some other part of the engine, then I thought maybe it came off something to do with the oil filter or the oil pump.

Does anyone know where the metal tube/sleeve may have come from ending up in the oil, and is it something worthy of trying to remove/loosen the oil pan to figure out if the engine is needing repaired, or is the truck going to leave me stranded shortly, or do I need to accept the fact I need to get rid of the truck, etc.?

Thank you in advance.

 

I've driven the truck at all sorts of speeds for as far away as an hour each way, and I haven't had any problem other than a little hesitation, or stutter as my daughter might refer to it. A friend thinks the piece of tube is probably the end of one of the valve pushrods that broke off and ended up in the oil pan. Another friend believes I should have no problem driving the truck as-is since I have been driving my old truck with other issues for years. Some of the issues may include: probably need to replace the exhaust manifold gasket, probably need to clean the throttle body, probably need to check the plugs and coil-on-plugs (COPs), etc..I had been cleaning the throttle body yearly in order to clear out 0401 OBDII code prior to getting truck to pass the emissions part of yearly inspection; however, the past few years they don't check emissions anymore since the truck is 25 years old.