Doh! Dropped spanner at the rear of my engine!

[911TT33]

So I was trying to get to the oil pressure light switch area at the rear of my motor (3.2 Carrera motor), and dropped a 13mm spanner at the back there! Yikes!

Tried to find it with a torch and feeling around to no avail.

Any advice?! 😳

[proporsche]

magnet

[Balisong]

Mirror on a stick. Lots of light. Magnet.

[mike sampsel]

Tie a string on it next time so you can pull it up if you drop it.

[Jonny042]

Originally Posted by mike sampsel

Tie a string on it next time so you can pull it up if you drop it.

Or tie a string to another spanner and drop it and watch where it goes?

But seriously, it shouldn't have gone that far... I have a USB inspection camera I plug into my laptop that's really handy for these sorts of things.

[Mike Andrew]

Haven't we all done this?

Where's my 10mm socket?

All good suggestions to find and remove it. Much easier to find than a 13mm nut.

[yelcab1]

I once found a pair of pliers behind that spot left there by someone like you.

[ant7]

Meanwhile; Disconnect the battery just encase the spanner falls onto the starter motor connections!
Good luck.
Ant.

[blucille]

small hands, find someone with small hands, I suspect it's easy to put a finger or 2 on, the magnet idea is a good one, but either way, small arms will reach back there more easily.

[ErrorMargin]

Originally Posted by 911TT33

So I was trying to get to the oil pressure light switch area at the rear of my motor (3.2 Carrera motor), and dropped a 13mm spanner at the back there…

My first thought is to take your cell phone, start recording video and slowly wave it around above the back of the engine, then check the video to see where the spanner fell.

You might consider unbolting the air box and removing it completely from the intake manifold, same goes for the heater blower and on the top left.

[Mark Salvetti]

There aren't many places for it to go there. Maybe inside the engine console, under the crank pulley?

(Edit: Oops, misread the original post. I thought he was wrenching the oil pressure sending unit by the fan.)

Mark

[avenbugt]

Leave it there with the other tools... for the next owner.

[fanaudical]

Somewhat related story: Long ago I was working on a piece of German farm equipment that had been serviced by various other people. I dropped the engine oil drain plug and it fell into the machine frame. I had to disassemble some stuff to retrieve it and found 3 additional drain plugs in the same location...