When something falls into the valves ...

[Decolliber]

Doing valve adjustment yesterday, the feeler gauge blade broke off and fell into the top valve of no.3 cylinder. Oh-oh. Trying not to panic, I managed to get it out with a magnetic wand. But what if something falls in there and you cannot get it out? Do you just put it back together, start the engine and hope that it will pass through into the exhaust?
BTW, Planter's long stem feeler gauge is very nice, though I still need to use the old short one next to the catalytic converter.

[philfran]

You could cause SERIOUS damage if you restart. You do everything. Pray to Allah, go to church and light a candle, meditate, and then use air to try to move it around so it will blow out or you can grab it with magnet or the little wire jaw grabber thingy.

[Lawrence914]

Not unless you don't like your engine.

Drop the engine... pull it apart. Remove foreign object. Beat yourself about the head and shoulders with a dead fish.

-Lawrence

[Wayne 962]

"fell into the top valve of no.3 cylinder. "

I really have no idea what exactly this means?

-Wayne

[Oldporsche]

You have to get that piece of feeler guage down the stem of the valve. That's pretty difficult in that you have a valve seal in the way as well as pretty tight clearances. In adjusting the valves, you have to keep the pieces out of the oil return tubes. You probably have a little more luck here. Almost every device can be used to extract what ever fell off. Just do it!

If, in case, you drop something into an intake port, you are probably in trouble.

Good luck,
David Duffield

[Lawrence914]

Wait a minute - I read that thinking that a piece of junk fell into the spark plug hole and into the cylinder (some people remove them for valve adjustments, though it's not recommended).

If that's the case, my previous recommendation stands - including the dead fish.

-lawrence

[Kurt B]

If it broke off when you were adjusting the valves, then it probably didn't fall into the cylinder.
It just fell onto the lower valve cover. You sure it fell into the head?