Just saw my rebuild flash before my eyes!!!
 

So,

I was finishing up the rebuild of my C3 and was putting on the valve covers for the last time. As I had the engine rotated around on the passenger side. That is where I saw the flash.

As a practice, I have used the blue shop paper towels everywhere to plug up open holes during the rebuild. I have been pretty good to count them before I seal the patient up. The inlet oil line below the oil cooler was no acception to the blue rag plug.

When I was putting the valve cover on, I noticed that the blue rag had been pushed half the way down the return tube in the cooler. Or more likely (I assume), it had been sucked into the return tube as I cranked the engine around rechecking valve timing. If I had not had the engine tilted just right, the light would not have caught the towel but I am sure that the gears of the pump would have.

I was able to fish the towel out in one piece. Now the trick is fishing my self dobut on what else I have missed. But, hell, there is no way to go but forward from here.

The rag was INSIDE the return tube? Holy lucky spot Batman!

Yes I can relate did the right side cam tower today with those tubes. Kept looking at those tubes.

Lesson learned - On that tube, use a rubber band to keep the rag on the outside diameter of the tube.

Heheheh, Tim and I missed a KimWipe in the breather on his rebuild. Ever heard a freshly rebuilt motor go "WOOF" and make the entire car twitch? Boy was that funny. Ok, I was laughing and Tim was curled up in the driveway in the fetal position. But, uh, yeah, we totally feel your pain!

I can distinctly recall stuffing a shop rag into the exhaust outlet side of a heat exchanger.

Funny, I couldn't remember taking it out.

The Engine was idling a little funny after start up... hmm, maybe if I goose the throttle a little bit....

Did you know that a scorched, smoldering shop rag can exit a 911 muffler at what seems like 100 MPH?

Everyone makes the occasional mistake (officially termed an "oh *****!")

Learn from it, go back and spend 30 minutes checking all of the orifaces of the motor (you won't feel right until you do.) and move on.

You'll have a nice post for the "admit your stupidity" thread... :D

AFJuvat

Keep a log, take pictures along the way, always complete every task started.

Many years ago, [about 24 I think] I assembled a Bell Jetranger
New out of the shipping container. To cut a long story short,
the factory put a big cotton bag of silica gell in each exhaust outlet for shipping.
Owner/pilot cranked it up for the first start and it started raining
silica gell crystals,I immediately shut him down,but the cotton bags were
on fire. Permission to panic approved! I pulled those burning bags out of there barehanded.
No damage but much embarrassment.

It's only a f--k-up if you DON'T catch it!! I'll be the first to say here that you can never be too carefull!!

If you were a surgeon, you'd have malpractice insurance to cover your butt. With a 911 rebuild, you're on your own. Good catch!!

Don't surgeons bury their mistakes?

About a decade ago I rebuilt the carbs on a friends honda V4 motorcycle. When we went to start it up it ran like crap. Upon further inspection we discovered that one of the shoprags used to keep things from falling into the carbs was not removed. It was a bit difficult to remove since it had traveled deep into the carb but the bike ran great once we got it out of there. :D