Vintage Dirt Bike Q & A

changed oil and this highly magnetic piece of perfect circle steel was on the top of magnetic drain plug? anyone know where it came from? should I be worried?? 1980 cr250

_________________
1980 cr250

Is that a rivet head, maybe off the clutch basket?

I'd sure want to have a look to see if the gear was about to separate.

That looks like a small neodymium magnet. I tried making my own magnetic drain plug once by placing one of these on the outside end of the drain plug, but the magnetic effect was very weak at the gearbox end. I was going to try epoxying it to that end but chickened out (worried it would fall off and rattle around the gearbox), then I found a Moose drain plug that fit.

If this thing grips ferrous metals strongly, it's almost certainly a magnet of some kind, not a round piece of steel.

Ray

_________________
'74 CR125M (175cc), '75 MR175, '82 RM250Z, '08 YZ250F, '14 Zero FX electric, '14 Zero MX electric, '18 Alta MXR electric

thanks for response guy's. it appears that little sucker is indeed a small magnet and it was holding on with all its might centered on top of my drain plug. doing what a previous owner wanted it to do I suppose then, gathering a fine black metal dust like dirt from internals. going to have to wait until the next oil change to go back there now

_________________
1980 cr250

better pic..........

_________________
1980 cr250