tveltman

Well, it went down the rabbit-hole for sure. While I was swapping out valve covers on an engine in a car, I managed to drop a bolt down into one of the oil passages. What do we think I need to do to get that sucker out? I can't see it from any angle, so the bolt must have at least traveled partway down the passage. Anyone have a suggestion that doesnt involve removing the heads and oil pan? Advice much appreciated. For reference, it is the lower passage beneath the cam tensioner on the driver's side where I think the bolt must have gone, since I definitely dropped it into the valvetrain and I can't find it anywhere (and that is the lowest point, doh!)

Thanks in advance

GlenL

Magnet on a stick. You'll find them at most FLAPS.

Rob Edwards

Which/what size bolt? Get a long flexible magnetic retriever and fish it down the drain passage, hopefully you'll get it. If not, you might be incredibly lucky and it will have fallen into the sump (a longshot if it went down the drain between cylinders 6 and 7, and if you don't have a GTS baffle in there), and you might be able to fish it out with a magnet thru the drain plug hole. Otherwise I'd think the pan will need to come off.

tveltman

It was one of the bolts that holds the throttle/cruise actuator onto the side of the intake manifold. 13 mm head, don't know the exact thread size off the top of my head. I was pulling it off to make getting the valve cover on easier, and fumbled and dropped it in there.

Rob Edwards

M8x20 bolt- might make the turn at the bottom of the drain.... If you can't fish it out thru the cylinder head drain hole, I suppose you could drain the oil out of the sump and put it in gallon jugs Then put a funnel in the cylinder head drain, leave the oil pan plug out, and try to rinse the bolt down into the sump- you might get lucky and 'flow' it to near the drain hole in the pan (?)

Jim M.

I don't think a bolt with a 13mm head will pass down to the pan. BTDT, I dropped one of the cam cap bolts (allen head) down an oil return port and it didn't make it all the way to the pan. Finally found it with a borescope and fished it out with a magnet and mechanical fingers.

Get a strong flashlight or a borescope and look down all the return ports in the head. If you don't find it, you can remove the oil level sender at the front of the pan and get a magnet in there (drain the oil first).

The biggest danger is that it's not in the pan and can fall the rest of the way to the pan. Murphy's law says it will hit the crankshaft when it does fall and do lots of damage, so get it out.

928mac

Well you you have to get it out, no question.

so..... the borescope is a good idea, verify where it is.
Then I would epoxy the right size magnet onto some mechanics wire and run it down after the bolt.

But you have to do what ever it takes to find that bolt

brianrheffron

Referring to the recent thread on borescopes
this seems like a perfect application for a cheap
borescope with clip on magnetic pick up.
http://www.dartsystems.co.uk/shop/in...b3gmjv31iio4p5

tveltman

I just had a flash of insight...

I need to remove the intake manifold anyway, so do we think its possible that I can snake it out through the oil filler neck hole? IIRC that hole is pretty large and goes straight down to the pan.

Thanks in advance, again =)

Jim M.

If the intake needs to come off then it's worth a try, but in my opinion NO! That hole is almost directly above the pickup, so that will be in the way and above that is the crankshaft. Also if it fell down a drain back hole, it's still sitting near the sidewall of the pan. Have you looked down all the drain back holes in the head with a strong flashlight? The borescope found mine, but after we knew what we were looking at you could see it with just a flashlight.

tveltman

I snaked my magnet-on-a-wire down the hole it dropped down and I went clean through and hit a large chunk of something magnetic, which I assume is the crankshaft. No bolt.

You think it might be underneath another hole rather than the one I dropped it down?

Ed Scherer

I've never tried this before, but with a sufficiently strong magnet, shouldn't you be able to move an object like a bolt around in the pan (non-ferrous alloy, right?) by moving the strong magnet outside the pan? Then at least you'd be able to know (because you'd hear it dragging and maybe feel the interaction with the magnet) whether or not it reached the pan and then you might be able to move it to a location where you could get a magnet on it from the inside.

BTW, the little inspection cameras (like my Ridgid SeeSnake Micro) are worth their weight in gold. I just used mine again a week ago or so... to locate and retrieve an injector seal that I accidentally dropped into the V when removing a fuel rail. Didn't have any extra ones (injector seals) on hand and was about to leave to see if I could find one at a local auto parts place (good for an hour round trip, assuming I could even find what I needed) when I remembered that I had the camera. 10 minutes later, I had found and retrieved the seal from a location where I would have never found it without the camera.

Brett Jenkins

Turn the car upside down and shake it

tveltman

You'd need an absurdly strong magnet to penetrate that much metal. Probably like 12 tesla or something, and 12 tesla is a HUGE magnet, as in, like, a liquid helium cooled superconducting magnet.

EDIT: you are right though, the idea is sound, just not too feasible given the ton of ferrous material *around* the engine

EDIT 2: actually, maybe you could do it as long as it was right on the other side of the pan. I can get magnets from lab that might be strong enough...

Ed Scherer

Anyone have a spare oil pan around to see if you can manipulate a bolt through it? I don't know what the pan material is, but, for example, the magnetic permeability of both magnesium and aluminum are close to that of air. I'd be surprised if you couldn't manipulate a bolt through an oil pan with an old speaker (like from a big woofer or subwoofer) magnet.