Cardinal mistake?

[tahoelife]

So in the process of trying to bring a 1970 911e MFI 2.2 back from storage hell I think I dropped a 8mm nut down the intake.... I have since searched everywhere i can with a magnet (and yes the nuts are magnetic) and I even borrowed a snap on camera and have looked down the intake and in the cylinder through the spark plug hole. to no success, I then blew compressed air down the injector hole while watching on the camera and still nothing is there any other way besides pulling the head to see if it in there or if you had done these steps what would be your next move?

[cgarr]

You think? you checked everything out except pull the head? Nothing? then you may have not dropped it down the intake? but if you cant find that nut where did it go? In the past when I have lost parts I have taken the same part and dropped it where I thought I did and see what it looked like, not saying you should drop another 8mm nut down the intake, just sayin... Thats a pretty big nut!

[Eagledriver]

If you dropped it down the intake and the throttle was closed (and you didn't open it) the nut can't get past the throttle plate. If the throttle was open (or you opened it after) then you might need to check further. One thing you could do is crank the engine slowly by hand. You should meet resistance when the piston gets to TDC if there is a nut in there.

-Andy

[tahoelife]

Thank you for the input I believe the throttle valve was closed but in the process of pulling the stacks it might have gotten bumped again not sure enough for it to fall through. However I. Can not find it any where else. I will try to move through cycle to tdc and see how it feels by hand , do you think it would bind completely or just have resistance?

[cgarr]

Any chance you could get one of those super rare magnets? I have one that will crush your fingers! You could just move it around the intake and hear the nut if it was in there.

[Walt Fricke]

I'd take my manifolds off. If the intake was closed when this happened, no way the nut could have gotten down into the combustion chamber. But if it was open, . . .

And you can turn your induction upside down and shake it to see if it is hiding in there somewhere.

A bother, but less so than a nut jammed in a valve, or dropoing into the combustion chamber.

I once decided that screws should hold my intake stacks (the things on top of the carb but under the air filter). Several vibrated loose, and when the stack slid to one side, fell in. Made quite a racket, and did the head and piston no good at all. At least they were small and didn't cause the engine to blow up. An 8mm nut would be almost as bad as having a valve head break off (done that, too).

Until I had done this I wouldn't trust the turn it over test, no matter how successful, to persuade me that this nut really had fallen on the shop floor.

[tahoelife]

So my gut is telling me to pull the Head off just to make sure, with that said is it possible to do in the car? Or do I have to "drop" it?

[Walt Fricke]

Why do that at this point?

To pull a head off you have to pull the engine, remove all the rockers on that side, pull the cam out, remove the exhaust headers and the intake manifold, and pull off the cam carrier (the part that holds the valve covers). That's a lot of nuts and bolts. Only then can you undo the four nuts which hold that one head on to take it off. Then you go through all this in reverse, including retiming that cam. If the nut is in there, and you can't otherwise get it out, you will have to do this. But you have, so far, nothing at all to indicate that the nut actually is in there.

Take off your intake manifold so you can look straight down into the intake port. You are going to have to do this at some point anyway, and you can do this with the engine still in the car. Look to see what the position of the intake valve is. If it is closed, or not open enough that an 8mm nut could not get by - and if you have not rotated the crank at all since this happened - the nut is not inside the combustion chamber. And you will be able to confirm that the nut is not in the intake port, because you can see every bit of it.

If the intake valve is open, or you don't know where it was when this happened because you have turned the crank, contact places which rent tools. Find one which will rent a fiber optic borescope with a diameter of less than 14mm, so it will fit through your spark plug hole. The really good ones, which have a screen and can save images, have much smaller tubes than the less expensive ones whose display is inside something which looks like a monocular and you hold up to your eye to view. Use it to examine the combustion chamber. In fact, while you do rotate the crank. If the nut is in there, it will be on the bottom of the cylinder, and the piston will push it up and into view at some point.

Was the Snap-on camera you borrowed a borescope? If so, the only thing you have not said you did was to rotate the crank up to TDC while you were looking at the bottom top of the combustion chamber through the borescope to see if a nut hove into view at some point, or was lying there as the piston started down again and you could get your scope back in to view that area.

Or just do as suggested: pull all your spark plugs to make this easy, and rotate the crank two full revolutions (or more). A standard 8mm nut is 6.45mm thick at its narrowest dimension. I don't know without looking it up what the piston to head clearance of an MFI piston is out at its perimeter, but it sure isn't this wide. So you will feel a very solid stop when the nut gets shoved up there and hits the head.

How to get it out if it is in there? Not through the plug hole - I checked with a spare head using a nut for 8mm studs with the reduced 12mm wrench size. But you might get it out through the intake valve with a magnet. Or take off the exhaust, and try for it through the exhaust valve, whose seat will be much closer to the nut you have pushed up to the top. You could use the scope to help guide your magnet.

Of course, if you are itching to take your motor apart anyway, have at it.

[304065]

Best $15 you will ever spend

Stalhwille magnetic pick-up tool

[iamchappy]

You may want to pull the exhaust off that side it may be worth a peek......less trouble than removing a head....

[tahoelife]

Thank you for all the input, so after 7 hours of searching hi and lo with top of the line "spy" equipment tes it was a fiber optic bore scope with flat screen display and "re-creating" the scenario I have determined that there is no way that sie nut is in the intake or combustion chamber. I am still at a loss of where it went but have determined that I have enough evidence to say it is not in a engine destroying location! and If I have failed well then it will get a rebuild. will post back after trying to start it but wil probably be a while as sent tank out to be treated and won't have it back for a bit.

Thank you so much for all the input...

[Walt Fricke]

Well, just to be sure, crank it over a couple of times by hand for additional peace of mind and less tension on the crossed fingers when you finally use the powerful starter motor.

Dontcha just hate it when you are a fumblefingers. I have my nut and bolt drawers strategically located over my waste baskets, and one small object periodically falls in when I am scrabbling around.

[cgarr]

Or after you get the case all bolted up with the thru bolts you buddy behind your back puts an extra little blue o-ring on the the bench!