Help! Dropped socket, dont know where it went!

[Sonic dB]

Im

[yelcab1]

Probably rolled into one of the crevices. You need 2 things: 1) a small adjustable mirror, and 2) a magnet on a stick. THeir use is self-explanatory. I would not start it up until I find that socket.

[David E. Clark]

Don't even think about starting the engine! Stick the magnet in every crevice you can find. Eventually you'll hook the socket.

[Sonic dB]

Yeah...Ive got the magnet and the mirror, need more light!

Thanks for the one star rating, thats what this one deserves.

[RickM]

This happened to me once.....work light and telescoping mirror.....I HATE when stuff like this happens.

[TSNAPCRACKLEPOP]

my tools have been running away from home for years............incidently..........whenever i am at my brothers houses, i see that they have every tool i have ever owned in my life, even the "special made" ones.

[Kurt B]

It's not a dumbass problem; just unlucky. Shows you one of the additional uses for crazy glue. Yes, I have used it to hold nuts into sockets and to keep sockets onto tools. clean after you're done and call it a day.

[Neilk]

If the socket rolled one way, perhaps you can get it to roll the other way by jacking up the left side of the car.

[Bill Verburg]

It sometimes helps to know the lay of the land. here's the top of a Carrera w/o all the mess

and a different view

[Superman]

I once let a wing nut fall into the heat exchanger. If you're still in the process of removing the heads, then you'll find it eventually. If it's just a valve adjustment you're doing, then the intake system should not be off and 'open.' I guess I don't understand.

[HarryD]

Bill,

Very nice (albeit gratuitous ) engine picture. Wished mine looked so nice!

[Mr9146]

Bill,

I love the gratuitous engine shot. Makes me want to take my motor apart for fun.

If he was taking off the valve covers inside the engine compartment, there is no way - unless he doesn't have the engine sheet metal - that the socket would get under the car.

Try sticking a magnet down the plug holes as this is one of the places that sockets like to go if the cover is on when you lose the socket. However, simply dragging the magnet around that side of the engine compartment has been known to help.

[Bill Verburg]

That's a 3.2 Carrera, not mine but since i've been accused here's mine

Somwhat different

[MarkY]

Bummer. When you do find that socket, be sure and post where it was you found it. That way, the rest of us will know to look there first when it happens to one of us.

Good Luck.

[Sonic dB]

Thanks for

[Doug Zielke]

Originally posted by Sonic dB
I just hope that its not anywhere important. Guess I will find out when I button it up and fire it up.

Just be sure to take some pictures of the blow-up for the Mechanical Mayhem Files.

[MY83SC]

How about this one....Let the Nephew check the oil...and he drops the dip stick into the tank

[speeder]

That's why they call it a "dip stick". OK, sorry, really.

There are actually not many places that the socket can go, and absolutely nowhere that it can get "inside of the motor". If that was true, I would not be able to wash my motors w/ a garden hose, now would I?

I think that *down a plug hole* is a good guess, have you stuck the magnet down all of them? Otherwise drag the magnet around the top of motor, or just run to Sears and buy a new 13mm socket. And I am relatively sure that you are calling a valve adjustment a "valve job", right? An actual valve job would require the removal and disassembly of most of your motor, so lost sockets would have nowhere to hide.

[Sonic dB]

Speeder....

[TSNAPCRACKLEPOP]

when you get that new socket, drop it in the same area where you last saw the other one, except this time tie a string to it, and follow the string to it, and there, nearby, you will find the other socket, then pick out the best one fer yerself, and take the other one back, with the reciept.
cordially, tom and huck, missouri.
ps, buy our book