the flyin' scotsman

I totally gave up on ever finding this part.

Its one of the aluminium washer on the oil feed pipe for the cam chain tensioner.

Pic of the location where found:

928 at last

Malcolm,
Can't see anything hardly in that pic...too dark.
Where did it wind up?????

the flyin' scotsman

Look right in the middle of the pic.

How it got there I've no idea...........it may have fallen off of the tensioner, or got blown there when I searched with air or???????????

After Bill I may be mr. lucky #2..............I was so parnanoid about this washer.

928 at last

OK, I dropped the jpeg into my photo software.....
Wierd....but at least on the (much) lighter side of the news, it's one less thing to keep you up at night!
After all you went through to find the ^%$@#^% thing, excellent that it finally turned up!
Congratulations!

928 at last

OK, I dropped the jpeg into my photo software.....
Wierd....but at least on the (much) lighter side of the news, it's one less thing to keep you up at night!
After all you went through to find the ^%$@#^% thing, excellent that it finally turned up!
Congratulations!

DonT

Enhanced photo of the MIA washer.

docmirror

You got lucky. I was gapping the plugs, and cleaning the carbs on my Lambo a while back and dropped a brass jet..... Yep, right down the open hole. Grrrrrrrrr,,,, That took hours to get out.

Bill Ball

I was interested in changing the rub blocks on my cam chain tensioners recently while doing to the cam cover gaskets. I started the job and chickened out when I came to removing the oil feed on the passengers side. The lower banjo is completely obscured from view by the cam. I was sure I would drop one of those washers during removal or reinstallation. I know many people have done this with the motor in the car. On the S4 tensioner this looks risky at best. What's the trick?

the flyin' scotsman

Bill...........on the install I used a dab of grease to hold the washers in place.

On removal...........stuff everywhere with rags and unthread the bolts by hand once loosened. With the bolts removed with the upper washers gently raise with oil feed pipe and capture the lower washers with needle nose pliers.

The washers are aluminium so no magnets can be used.

Bill Ball

Capture with needle nose....there seemed to be too much in the way to get them in there on the lower passenger side. Oh well, my rub blocks looked surprisingly good. I'll wait until I have a reason to pull the cams/heads/motor.

Tom in Austin

I used curved end of a dental pick to fish out the little hummers ...

Ed Scherer

Ditto that.



Bill, you're ten times the mechanic I am, and after doing this, I assure you that it's no big deal, as long as you're careful (especially about plugging up the oil drain holes).


Other tips:

• (I already posted this one in another thread but I'll repeat it here):
  
  Cut up some small foam rubber blocks to use to plug up the oil drain passageways. You can tuck the edges in really nicely such that anything you might drop will just sit there in plain sight rather than (if you were to just use a wad of paper towel) possibly/probably falling into a crevice in the paper towel wad where you might not see it or you'd have to fuss with it to remove (and then maybe let it drop farther or all the way!)
  
  
  4 cm by 4 cm by 2 cm chunks of foam rubber work just great:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• When disconnecting the oil feed tube, loosen both banjo bolts first, then when the tube is fairly loose, you can remove the top bolt and capture the whole bolt / washer / tube head / washer between your thumb and forefinger as you back the bolt all the way out. Then you can easily pull it apart with little risk of dropping anything. When you disconnect the bottom bolt, just pull it out slowly along with the washer. The rear washer might (mine did) slide down toward you a little or might stick to the head mating surface; either way, you can pick it out with a curved pick like Tom said. Or it might stick to the tube, in which case you might be able to just lift it out with the tube.
  
  
• On reassembly, loosely fit the tensioner first (i.e., tighten down the bolts enough that you can still move the tensioner around a little). Then move on to the feed tube. I did the bottom part first, using the "dab of grease to hold rear washer to tube" trick. If that doesn't work (it's pretty easy to knock the washer off on the way down), you can try it the other way around. Wipe the oil off the head mating surface, and stick the washer to it. Then put the tube over it and put the bolt/top washer in. Don't tighten very much; leave it loose and you'll be able to do the top one quite easily (I used needle nose pliers to put the back washer on the banjo bolt / washer / tube head right before inserting into the tensioner).
  
  
• If you're like me, you'll be left wondering, "Did that bottom washer really stay behind the feed tube? I don't see it anywhere else, so it must be there, right? (it's really hard to see)." The problem is that there might be other places it might be hiding if it moved (like right under/behind the chain)... so: if you move your head such that you can look down behind the cam shaft with your line of sight almost on the same plane as the head (and the bottom part of the feed tube), you should be able to barely see the washer edge. You'll have to stare at it for awhile and convince yourself that you're seeing what you think you're seeing (or not, in which case you're in trouble and will have to start hunting).
  
  
• Of course, don't forget to torque all the bolts and — if you used the paper clip / baling wire trick — remove the tensioner holder wire (I almost forgot to remove mine on the left side). I like hanging reminder notes near where I'm working and removing them as I complete tasks so I'm damn sure I don't forget anything.

AO

I dropped one of the little basters down the drain passage of the 87 I recently sold. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The foam blocks would have saved me.

Bill Ball

Since chickening out on my car I came across another one where I had no choice. I was doing cam covers on an 87 and found the passenger side chain tensioner was seized solid. So, I removed it without a safety net and ended up having no touble with the aluminum washers. They came out with the oil feed assembly and went back in the same way. Of course, one little jostle and I might have been cussing loudly. So, I like the foam block idea.

AO

Count yourself lucky. I had no issues the first time. This of course gave me the confidence to do it again... without the safety net.

I tried my aluminum magnet, but it didn't work.