HELP! Where has it gone? A comedy.

[johnconradlee]

One of those evenings where I thought I'd slip out to the garage and do a bit of of work on the car and now wish I hadn't. Fitting my new rocker shaft and rockers. Then went to adjust the tappets. The engine didn't want to turn over by hand which was odd. I didn't want to bend the fan so cranked her over on the starter - I'm a muppet! : It appears the thread for adjusting the tappets is a fair bit longer than on the original and I hadn't slackened them off since they came out of the box and some were fully extended. Consequently pistons and valves were fighting for the same space which thankfully transferred the force to the pushrods some of which are now bent like a banana (thankyou MK1 spindley pushrods!). Having checked the valves looked OK and nothing else was broken and just as I was trying to reassure myself that pushrods are cheap and I hadn't killed the car, I managed to drop a tappet nut down the inlet pushrod tube on cylinder 4. At this point I should have gone in and come back another day. Magnet on a stick didn't fit so I tried to fish it out with a bit of threaded rod slightly smaller than the thread of the nut. Managed to flick the nut round the right way, got the rod in the middle pushed it against the side and lifted carefully. I got reasonably far, then lost my grip and it landed on the edge of the cam follower. In trying to get hold of it again I flicked it down the oil hole further into the block. I heard it hit something as it fell, which sounded a fair way down.
Can someone please confirm my assumption its going to have ended up in the sump, presumably having bounced off the crank on the way past? Or if not where that hole goes and how much engine I need to disassemble to get the nut back?

[johnnydog]

Not sure whether it is of any consolation, but.....
When I first got my S, it had a standard drain plug in the sump. A few oil changes later, I decided to fit a magnetic sump plug, mainly because the hex nut is a lot easier to remove compared with the tapered square head of the original, and secondly, I thought it would pick up any unwanted swarf....
At the next oil change, I duly removed the sump plug, and to my surprise, an uninvited visitor had attached itself to it. After a bit of head scratching and 'I've seen one of those before....', I recognised it as the cross headed countersunk machine screw from the rockershaft. Fortunately, the rockershaft still had one fitted, so how had it got in the sump? As the mileage on the car was only in the mid 40's (no guarantee, I know...) and it was not apparent it had had any major surgery, I can only presume that the screw had somehow been there since manufacture. How it got there remains a mystery, but it doesn't seem to have caused any issues, and could well have been still in the sump today had it not been for the magnetic drain plug.
Not exactly the same as your problem, but the path it took is probably similar. I can only think that this machine screw was lost whilst the engine was being assembled new with the cylinder head in place, maybe as the rocker assembly was being fitted which found its way into the sump via an oilway from the cylinder head.
Food for thought...?

[valencia]

Pop the sump off and have a look, set your mind at rest, of course if it's not there you're still no further on. Also- does the engine now turn freely ?
I think many people have done something similar, I once dropped the top of a spark plug inside the cylinder on a Citroen 2cv, it stopped the engine turning, I sucked it out with a small pipe sellotaped to a vacuum cleaner, let us know how you get on,
Michael

[Clifford Pope]

Can you push something like a wire coathanger down the hole to confirm where it goes and how far?

[johnnydog]

I find using an old Triumph inner speedo cable ideal for this type of thing - any drain holes such as sunroof drains (on modern cars obviously!), drains in the boot lid aperture, and drain holes in the leading edge of the sills etc etc. They are flexible enough to follow any curves or changes in direction, but firm enough to 'hold their own' without causing any damage or marking any surface. Plus they are long enough to usually reach where needed.

[Mike Stevens]

I do as JD does but with a bit of curtain wire, or even a MiG torch wire liner!

Cheers,
Mike.

[johnconradlee]

I've got an old 4m steel MIG torch liner in the garage somewhere - I'll try carefully poking that down.

[johnconradlee]

I spent quite a long time trying to find the hole the nut had disappeared down.
Firstly I was checked it had definitely gone down and definitely not sideways as the pushrods are in groups of 3 in the block with a gap between (like the cut-outs on the head gasket) so conceivably it could have been out of view down the other end somewhere - it wasn't.
Then I had to find the hole. The problem is you can't actually see much with the head on the engine and I really did not want to take the head off again. After a lot of poking with my my trusty blue MIG torch liner I found the hole next to the cam follower in the wider gap pretty much in line with the rocker pedestal (see annotated picture below). This hole goes down a few inches, then you hit something which I assume is the cam shaft where it runs through the block. With a bit more wiggling the hole then continues off at an angle you then go down a long way before the clonk as the end of the MIG torch liner hits the sump - so yes it does end up in the sump!

[johnconradlee]

And after much swearing and getting totally plastered in 54 years of oily goo I got the sump off and there in the middle is the blooming nut! (scratch to the left in the oily layer in the sump from the MIG torch liner).
Success!

[wild bill]

Well done John,your mind is now at rest, and no doubt your sump pan is now very clean! Good to see it made it all the way downwind probably wouldn't have caused harm If you had surmised it went into the sump, but weren't actually sure,I am certain you would not rest easy Congratulations,now for a celebratory drink and a good night's sleep.Feel free if you want to do the same