Hopefully I'll have some more later this week, but for now I'm just typing to share my excitement in clearing a hurdle (And because it's been dead in here lately...)
-----
Does anyone else have a Wall of Shame? I've begun decorating mine as of late. Here's your story for the day:
So, back in October, there was a little mishap with a certain stubborn dipstick and a certain stubborn dipshet. Long story short, I was left with a dipstick sans a few inches.
Petrified that there may now be a chunk of steel dipstick in my oil pan, I decided to explore...
I searched all around the car, the ground and in random crevices of the undercarriage to see if I got lucky and it was somewhere outside of my motor. How foolish. My optimistic childish naivety makes me chuckle.
I tried going in through the dipstick hole with a tiny, tiny magnet. No dice.
Drained the oil, hoping the magnetic drain bolt would have attracted the piece and saved me. Negative.
Perhaps it came out with the oil? Nope, nothing in the drain pan but clean, fresh, unused motor oil... also known as "Money down the drain" in the UK.
Went in through the drain bolt hole with the aforementioned Midget Magnet, and tried with grabber tool as well. Couldn't feel anything.
Acquired big ol' magnet and scanned it across the bottom of the pan, in hopes that if there was anything in there, I could drag it to the exit point & retrieve it. Mildly clever, but still no dipstick end.
Hmm... "Maybe I got lucky? Maybe it ISN'T in there!"
...That delirium was short-lived; I know my luck. Fast forward to May:
The weather has greatly improved but my peace of mind has not. I couldn't comfortably go forward with running this car again without knowing for sure there is nothing in there.
I disconnected the pan and let it hang. I was hoping that, if there's a dipstick end stuck in the hole/pan/block somewhere, that perhaps creating separation between the pan & block would either dislodge the sucker or allow me a visual of the piece/room for pliers. Still nothing.
This left me with no choice: I had to pull the pan off.
After attending a local car show as motivation, MyFirstZ and I took on the task Sunday afternoon. Looking back, it wasn't that awful to do: Removed the compressor & alternator, the horizontal motor mount bolts, hoisted the motor up via the front of the heads, and dropped the K-member.
We got the pan off without much fuss, and inspected it. Nada! Okay, this is good!
Removed and checked under the cover/[splash guard?] and still found nothing! "Well, I guess I was just paranoid! At least I now KNOW there's nothing in there. It was worth it, I suppose..."
15 minutes later, as we go to re-install the pan, an accidental flashlight beam and the corner of MyFirstZ's eye caught an object peaking out through the Windage Tray. I damn near shat myself. I couldn't have been more happy than I was at that moment. It was barely poking through, right here where I've set the pick:
I found the piece, threw it in a spare junk-frame I had, and added it to my Wall of Shame collection.
