HELP! Nuts In My Pan?

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T

tdkhelene

Joined
Feb 19, 2007
Threads
19
Messages
161
Location
Seattle WA
While changing my HG the other day I was using my 99 cent feeler guage to scoop the goop out from around the edges of the cylinders and as I get to the #1 hole I hear a "pop" and... tic, tic-tic, tic... the nut that holds the guage together pop's off and falls straight into the wide open timing chain hole. :bang: I can't tell you how long I fished around in there with a long magnet, but to no avail... no nut. It's about 3/8". I tried pulling the 14mm hex nut out of the bottom next to the crank pulley in hopes it had fallen all the way to the pan... but again, nothing.

What can I do besides hope and pray? (and disassemble the rest of my motor?)
 
I am sorry for your pain, and can relate. from one who knows, get the thing out of there, I left a rubber cam cover plug in a mazda engine timing galley thinking that it would be chewed up and get filtered out...:hillbilly:

:crybaby:...no, catastrophic failure.


I was 16 or so at the time, and doing a valve cover gasket, what could possibly go wrong......
 
I'm at a loss as to how to get this thing out though... my motor is pretty much buttoned up on top now. Am I going to have to pull the pan off or what?
 
What I might do is spin the motor by hand a little bit and see if I can hear something fall into the pan. There's a lot of gears and cogs behind that cover and I'm just scared that the nut is caught between them. Maybe by spinning the motor by hand it'll be slow enough to cause it to tumble down. If it does get caught in a gear, at least i could feel the resistance. <shrug>
 
At a minimum, I would drop the small oil pan and hope that it somehow fell down there. Next step would be to pull the large pan and search around. After that....may the force be with you!
 
Criminy. I'd consider buying a cheap spy camera thingy that can snake down there, and a flexy headed magnet from NAPA or similar. It's gonna cost a couple hundred dollars for this stuff, but I think oil pan and timing cover removal requires a LOT of time. Maybe even call a high end plumber and see if they have an optical pipe inspection capability.

DougM
 
Isn't that pan aluminum? So dragging a magnet across it toward the oil drain should move the nut to the oil drain if it's in there. A flexy-head magnet as Doug suggested might reach all the way to the front of the oil pan from the drain.
 
Actually... I've got a borescope from work... that's a great idea guys... I'll give it a shot and let you know how it goes!
 
Some of the nuts on feeler gauges are alloy, if so a magnet wouldn't do any good. I have taken many motors apart and found misc hardware in the pan, some looked to be there a long time with no issue. If it's in the timing chain area or power steering/oil pump gear area, damage can be done and needs to be removed. If in the pan, I wouldn't worry about it, very slim chance of it causing damage.
 
Well... i 'scoped out the timing chain gallery with my borescope (saw some cool things) but no nut. I turned the motor over by hand a couple times to hopefully drop anything that may have been caught in the gears down to the pan and then turned it over a couple times with the main spark lead disconnected. Then finally lit 'er up. No "chunk-a chunk-a" sounds, no grinding of metal against metal, just a sweet purr of a job (mostly) well done. (sans the nut). I'm going to drain the oil out here again shortly and hopefully it'll come out then. Thanks for all the suggestions guys!
 
fingers crossed buddy, hope it goes well.:popcorn:
 
Change the oil while parked nose high, remove the oil cap before the oil pan drain for maximum flow velocity and cross your fingers. Put some screen across the drain pan so you'll have certainty to the end of this story. Rap on the oil pan with a wrench to encourage vibrating movement if it's sitting in sludge.

Dougm
 
As Kevin says, You might take your chances. If it is not magnetic in any way, it will probably fall down and be harmless. Just be sure that it is not in any important part like a chain.
Kevin and I both worked in salvage, and it was amazing the things that we found in oil pans. Everything from rings to lead shot. We even found wedding rings. I once found a Coke can printed in Japanese! I should have saved that one! It might be valuable!
You can take the whole engine apart, or you can hope for the best.
 
I will screen out my next oil change for sure.... as for the question about it falling into the motor... yah... I saw the little b@gger drop and heard it bounce a few times.

I could see a wedding ring sliding off as you are pulling your hand out... Doah!
 
FYI...I bought a 97 FZJ with the motor out of it as a shop over-recommended a repair...I'm sure I've written about it somewhere. Anyway, the thing, so they said, shook at idle. I presume they pulled the pan and saw the windage tray-like crankshaft cover wrapped up in the crankshaft. They told the customer it needed a motor. Customer said no, I'll take the $12k you're quoting me and just buy a new car.

I bought the thing and the only conclusion I could arrive at when looking over everything is that someone left a nut, bolt, debris in the motor when doing some engine work and said nut, bolt, debris got caught in between the crank and this tray...FYI, when I pulled it all down the bearings looked great. Only issue was some metal in the pan here and there and I don't install motors back into cars that "shook at idle" without seeing this shaking "at idle" first-hand. And since they pulled the motor out, it was NOT going back in as it sat.

Word to the wise...watch out and stuff a rag in the timing gear area next time...doh!
 
"Word to the wise...watch out and stuff a rag in the timing gear area next time...doh!"

Good advice!!! :clap: Lesson learned... Thanks for the personal experience SBFJ60FIG. I think I may just hope for the best right now and use any catastrophic engine failure as an excuse to petition the :princess: for a engine swap! I'll post an update if either A) I find the nut or B) the nut finds me (the hard way) Thanks for the help guys! :cheers:
 
tdkhelene said:
"Word to the wise...watch out and stuff a rag in the timing gear area next time...doh!"

Good advice!!! :clap: Lesson learned... Thanks for the personal experience SBFJ60FIG. I think I may just hope for the best right now and use any catastrophic engine failure as an excuse to petition the :princess: for a engine swap! I'll post an update if either A) I find the nut or B) the nut finds me (the hard way) Thanks for the help guys! :cheers:
Click to expand...

I usually look behind the steering wheel first then proceed on to searching other places!
 
Sorry man...but I'm sure you'll be fine (right?? I think??). But like I said, the one I bought, I'm confident if the shop just did a Hail Mary and buttoned it back up cleaning everything out very well they'd have been just fine.

But in that case I would not have been able to buy a nice sub-100k FZJ on the cheap!

And GFU for posting this. I would probably never EVER tell anyone if it had happened to me!

tdkhelene said:
"Word to the wise...watch out and stuff a rag in the timing gear area next time...doh!"

Good advice!!! :clap: Lesson learned... Thanks for the personal experience SBFJ60FIG. I think I may just hope for the best right now and use any catastrophic engine failure as an excuse to petition the :princess: for a engine swap! I'll post an update if either A) I find the nut or B) the nut finds me (the hard way) Thanks for the help guys! :cheers:
Click to expand...
 
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