So here I am admitting to it world wide: I went and dropped a 3/8" washer down my front water port of my 324 Olds Rocket. Was bolting up the chains to pull the motor out, the intake and carbs were off, and I watched that sucker drop down in slow motion, "nothin' but net" perfection and right on down the port. Uhm...anybody got any helpful suggestions? Looks like I'm pulling the head off, yeah? I already tried rolling it upside down on the stand, but to no avail.
Use some mechanics wire, take a pair of needlenose pliers and bend a little hook on the end you send in the hole. You could also possibly magnatize the wire. Simple trick is to use a old speaker, large magnet on back and rub the mechanics wire across several times. Good Luck, TR
Since the engine is out, I presume you are doing some work to it. If the above suggestion doesn't work, might as well take it apart anyways. No Harm, No Foul!
I have seen freeze plugs inside the engine with no problem, but we all have to worry about something. I worry about distilled or tap water in radiators and what brand of oil filter to use. LOL
Then find the best Stud you have and put it by the port. That Washer might be feelin a lil randy and might jump up on it . Sorry must be the beer talk'n .
The washer has a hole in it as to let the water to flow thru it....right? Okay just kidding but traditions has the answer... if it is possible it should work.
How about 120 lbs. or so of compressed air, while you rock the engine around and hope it finds its way out the bottom via air pressure and gravity? If you have a CO2 bottle and a trigger fed hose you'll get several hundred lbs. of pressure.
Water port in the head, right? Should be able to get it out with one of them magnetic flexible things. How far could the washer go? Or you could just put a garden hose in one of the other ports and see if you can force it out the port it originally fell in with water pressure, IOW's back flush the thing.
good luck using a magnet with a cast iron block....btdt - gts...you'll have enough trouble pushing it down the hole...and you'll have to continually bring it back up unless you have super-hearing ('click'). I like the let it go idea...it will find somewhere to sit for the rest of the engine's life. It does have a hole in it after all.
My retrieving magnet has a plastic casing that helps some with the side attraction. It will probably will take a bunch of dunking and a little luck but what the hell? I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get the speedo cable to go into my trans. It would start on the gear but not go all the way home. I finally got out the magnet and sure enough a 5/16" nut had fallen from above, lined up perfectly with the hole and made a ringer in the drive gear in the trans. A one in a million shot. I have no idea when it happened.
Leave it,dont stress or waste your time....I dropped a 5/16 x1 in a SBC valley area,it was mine so I left it...ran like a champ and probably still is...it will find a home and stay put....my .02 cents
When i was taking the new engine for the 53 apart, the distributor was the last thing i removed because it was so rusted on i had to let the Marvel oil seep. just as im tapping the bottom of the dis with a hammer, a small washer that was sitting on top of the thing fell off, hit the valley pan lip on the block and went right down the lifter journal i just cleaned out. Heard it clink twice in the engine, hope the reason there wasnt a third, is because it landed in oil.
As long as there's no chance of it messing up the water pump or clogging a passage, you can probably forget about it.
get it out, i cooked a motor cause someone knocked a welsh plug in and it eventually found its way up to jamb up the thermostat
If it's in the head, it'll never make it to the water pump. Worst case it might migrate to the thermostat at which point you'd know where it was immediately.
Telescopic magnet... If you got time to drink a beer, you got time to fish that washer out! Good luck!
Need to get that thing outta there!!! Head gaskets are much less expensive than a new engine!! Get one of those mini cams that you can snake down and see where the washer is at, then use a stiff wire and pull it out. If you pull the head, you might find something wrong you didn't bargain for.
Liked this one too, so I tried it! No luck. Even tried back flushing it upside down. Grabbed a couple cocktails and some wire, pulled up a barstool and fished for a while last night. That sucker is in there good. Can't seem to find it. Lots of opinions on leaving it or not. I can't make my mind up definitively one way or the other. Though with my luck, as it has always been, I'll be the guy blowing a hole in the block 300 miles from home. And I'll be hoofing it along the highway knowing exactly why I'm walking... Might be worth the price of head gaskets...
Are you 100% sure it went in. I had the shifter out of a T5 and swore I knocked a screw down the open hole. Well I pulled the trans tore it down, no screw. Putting the trans back in the creeper hits a speed bump, it's the screw.
You haven"t said yet why you pulled the engine in the 1st place. Pull the head and get it out and be done with it .might be a good idea to do both head gaskets.Leaving bolts,nuts,washers and even freeze plugs that a dummy didn"t take out properly and left it in the block is just Shade Tree 101. Lazy.
If you can't fish it out of the head, maybe it went all the way into the block. Do you guys recommend he get a new block "just in case"? Worst case scenario (and highly unlikley) is that somehow this rogue washer makes its' way to the thermostat where, if anything, it would stick it OPEN. Balance this against the time and cost of yanking the head, not to mention the can of worms you're opening...and the answer is pretty obvious. Good luck!!
Anybody ever wonder how the candy "life savers" got its name???? In all seriousness,I would want it out of there!! Probably wouldn't hurt nothin,but i wouldn't want to find out the hard way!!!
Get one of the flexible magnets or take some good 3m electrical tape that's soft and ball it up and around th end of a copper coat hanger and go to town.