Dropped bolt in engine bay

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Was doing some stuff under the hood and dropped a bolt into the dark abyss known as the engine bay. After a frantic 30 minute search and smacking the splash shield under the engine around, the bolt fell out near the wheel. What a relief that was.

Share some of your tales about the engine eating up bolts!
 
I was replacing my radiator when I found a flat head screw driver that I left there (or had knocked it down) from the previous radiator replacement. Luckily, It was just sitting there on the splash shield with nowhere to go. I've dropped bolts and other tools into the engine bay that have been a pain to remove. I've purchased one of those extending magnet wands, that seems to have lessened the pain.

(I found out that the car had some minor previous accident that left a bracket poking into the radiator wearing holes into it after a few months of use)
 
Never worred much about dropping bolts into the engine BAY (unless it was a unique bolt). I've also opened the hood to check the oil and gone, "so THERE'S where that wrench went!" weeks after having misplaced it. Dropping bolts into the ENGINE, on the other hand....

I once went through the exercise of removing a carburetor while veeeeeery carefully not opening the butterflies because I knew there was a stainless (non-magnetic) bolt sitting on one of them just waiting to drop into the manifold... :-/ I got it back, but I wasn't happy. And I got a lot more persnickety about covering the carb with a rag.
 
Magneettinostin+Ullman+HT-1,+HT-2,+HT-3-4334.jpg
 
I have a Sears Craftsman telescoping magnet with a little light on the end. It has retrieved a lot of bolts, nuts, washers for me.
 
Sometimes I hear things hitting the road apparently falling off my car. I always hope it's a stray nut or bolt I just left laying in the engine compartment and not something important. Maybe I need to get a mother Mary statue for my dash. Or a bobblehead Jesus.
 
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Merkava_4: Three sizes of tele-magnets! That's GREAT!

We found a "mechanical fingers" lying in the frame of my friend's '89 K1500. They weren't his though he bought the truck 25 years and 294,000 miles earlier.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Sometimes I hear things hitting the road apparently falling off my car. I always hope it's a stray nut or bolt I just left laying in the engine compartment and not something important. Maybe I need to get a mother Mary statue for my dash. Or a bobblehead Jesus.





And this bumper sticker.
61XyNwYE9pL._SX522_.jpg
 
About twenty years ago I bought an '80 Bronco, after owning it a while I found a ball peen hammer down in the grill/radiator area. I cleaned the handle and wire wheeled the rust off of the head, it had clearly been there a long time. That Bronco is long gone, but the hammer is still in my tool box.
 
I dropped the timimg chain tensioner from my corolla and couldn't find it. It's not that small. I gave up looking and rolled the car in neutral and it fell on the ground.
 
Happens to me every so often.
If you can see it, you can get it.
If not, good luck finding it.
This is where a box of miscellaneous fasteners comes in handy.
You can probably find a replacement among what you've got on hand if you work on things much at all.
If not, any hardware store or even Lowe's has what you need.
It's sometimes better just to give up and scrounge or buy a replacement than to spend a hand-shredding, frustrating hour trying to locate the piece you dropped.
 
I dropped a small socket and it fell into a hole in the frame of my 1950 Ford. I heard it rolling down inside the frame rail square tube, lost forever. Ed
 
Originally Posted By: KD0AXS
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Sometimes I hear things hitting the road apparently falling off my car. I always hope it's a stray nut or bolt I just left laying in the engine compartment and not something important. Maybe I need to get a mother Mary statue for my dash. Or a bobblehead Jesus.





And this bumper sticker.
61XyNwYE9pL._SX522_.jpg



Fast forward this video to around 3:50 :p
 
I've lost some into frame rails and such on previous cars, the Subaru likes to end up with stuff under the intake manifold that's a PITA to get to. But I really want to know why ones that don't hang up in the car, roll to the center under the car.
 
Magnets are great for tight places but what do you use for a bolt dropped into the engine. That happened to me in 1975 when I had my 302 rebuilt and then I installed it at home. Somehow the distributor hold down bolt fell down the opening for the distributor. On top of that the engine now had a windage tray.

Everyone left the garage while I started to curse. Grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on and took it out on the 4bbl intake on the engine sans carb. After a few hits I heard a clink as the force knocked the bolt down to the oil pan. Turned the engine over and all clear. The bolt was finally removed in 2010 when I pulled the oil pan to paint.

The tool was a Louisville Slugger.
 
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