Boy did I do something stupid to my SBC - advice please

I had the day off so I thought I would throw some chicken on the smoker and work on my hot rod. Never liked the chevy orange on my sbc so I decided to change color. Tape/paint/bake in Florida sun/ bring in shop and start pulling off tape. I had used this trick where you use aluminum foil to fill in bolt holes. Well, you guessed it - one of the ones I had in my spark plug hole ripped on the way out, hesitated a little bit then rolled into my cylinder. About a small marble sized ball of aluminum.

Had the idea of using a shop vac - put it on there for several minutes and even got the little bastard up where I could see it, but as soon as I touched it (with vacuum still on) in it went again.

So any creative ideas? Of do I have to pull the head? I've never done that before and want to avoid it if I can. Any way it ended up in the pan?

Well at least the chicken turned out good.

Happy Labor Day everyone

 

A metal wire or straw with some gum or grease on it.

 

get a soda straw and suck it up!!

 

Sounds like what I would try to do. Glad the dead chicken was good.

 

The metal wire trick could work, but make a "barb" on the end of it. Like a fish hook. Feel around and when you feel the ball of foil, stick it and slowly pull it out. The "barb" on the end will keep the ball from coming off.

Good luck.

Next time, put some old spark plugs in those holes, but I'm sure you know that now.

 

fire it up!

 

Reduce the shop vac hose to a small enough one to go into the cylinder and grab it.

Roll it so the hole is down and let gravity help you.

 

Use the shop vac, find some rubber fuel line hose that fits into the spark plug hole, then tape that to the hose end that tappers down. Stick that into the spark plug hole and turn it in every direction till it sucks the piece tight to the end and pull it out with the vac on.

 

A small ball of aluminum foil? I'd be real tempted to crank it over with the starter and see if it'll spit it out the exhaust before I'd pull a head. It's soft enough that it won't break anything, and since you have the exhaust manifolds off you can watch for it to spit out. If you have high enough valve lift, you might also be able to suck it out the exhaust port with the vacuum. If you don't have high enough lift, there are ways to take the valve spring off, and drop the valve just a little lower into the chamber to give you the needed clearance to suck it out.

 

Use one of those grab tools?
See photo 13
http://www.lamboweb.com/Repairs_Section/Diablo_Repairs_Plug_Coils.htm

 

Light it up !!!

 

We were typing the same thing at the same time.

 

There's no way it can end up in the pan. There's a piston in the way. At least you are considering what I would be thinking. And that's if it would find a way out the exhaust all by itself without any damage. I guess it'd be worth trying to fish out

 

crank it over with the spark plug out and let the force of compression blow it out. works well for accelerator pump squirters.

 

You will have to reduce the size of the ball to remove it. Take a popsicle stick and gently prod it into a smaller ball so you can suck it out with the vacuum.

 

Looks like you have it on an engine stand- why don't you turn the engine over with a breaker bar on the crank until that cylinder is almost at TDC. Then rotate the engine on the stand and let gravity do the work. Sounds easy- Doesn't it?!?!

If that doesn't work fire it up. It will blow right out the exhaust.

 

I'm confused, what was the purpose of foil in the spark plug hole? Any specific trick you were accomplishing?

 

I agree ,fire it up!

 

To keep paint from getting in there. Although, I would think it would burn off soon enough. I just put old plugs in.

 

yup, the motor wont even know it had a spec of tin foil in it.
think about it, the tin foil is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay softer than anything in the motor, so out it goes with the exhaust.

 

It looks like he went out to the shop to try one of our ideas.......hurry we're waiting

 

Thats what I'd try.

 

New color looks great though


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It's happened to me as well, but instead of foil paper I used tape. Crank it with spark plug off and will shoot out. Really no big problem. At least it wasn't with the rolled ball of tape i used to cover the spark plug hole. Nice color on your engine by the way. I recently used the same on my SBC.

 

Don't worry about it.

We once spit out an exhaust valve out the header pipes on a AA/D.

A quick valve grind, some polishing on the head and piston and it was good as new.

Ps, it happened when we started it up for the top eliminator run, we won anyway.

 

FYI next time use old spark plugs in the holes!

 

Dont lose any Sleep the Motor wont know its ther. One Blast of fFuel and Spark its gone

 

If you still have it sitting on that engine stand just put the starter on it and spin it over. Either it will come out the exhaust or it will get caught in the exhaust valve. If it gets caught in the valve it will be easy to get out with a long tweezers. JC

 

All great ideas and you gave me a lot of options. That;s what I needed.

I went out and my wife can feel it with her pinkie and its rolling around in there. I quickly tried a vacuum line at end of shop vac using my hand to seal it and that didn't work too good. I'll try cranking it over by hand with a breaker bar and have shop vac on it. If that doesn't do it I might try black rtv on end of coat hanger. After that, I think I can put it up on the hoist and hang it that side down and try vacuum/needle/fiddling around. I am sure it will take me 3 hours. Something like this always does. I'll report back tomorrow.

(and I thought about old plugs but didn't have any so I did the foil - then when I was pulling my Cutlass Rallye 350 back in the shop I remembered the tune up I did on it a month ago. I still had those old plugs - doh!)

 

Call Rube Goldberg !!!