Where is the worst place you’ve dropped something?
As always, we sincerely thank members of the Hagerty Community for their contributions to the According to You series. Your collective feedback enriches all who read this series, so have a look at our next question:
Where is the worst place you’ve dropped something?
Let’s say you dropped a bolt or tool, and it fell behind an immovable bench in your garage. Or in a place on a car that’s unreachable with a human hand or a magnetic pick-up tool.
Here’s my contribution:
The exhaust headers on the 5.0 in my Fox-body Mercury Couger has a few ARP header bolts that, after a few years of service, won’t do their job. One day, while on a road trip, I heard that familiar rattling sound of a bolt no longer clamping a header down. I didn’t stop in time: When I opened the hood at my destination, the bolt was missing. Oops!
Off to the hardware store I went, after extracting another ARP bolt from the Cougar to assist me in finding a close match. I procured and installed the cheap, not ARP-bolt, then turned my attention to replacing the genuine article, which I had purposefully removed. I promptly dropped it somewhere in the void behind cylinder number eight. And what a dark, imposing void it was! This is the place where bolts and miscellaneous tools disappear, never to be found on a Fox-body Ford.
The bigger problem was that I hadn’t heard that reassuring sound of metal hitting the ground. Oh no, I had heard the clang of a bolt hitting some metal part of the car. So I got out my phone, hit the flashlight, and looked around. When I didn’t see anything, I decided to feel around: across the subframe, control arms, and even the header itself, once it had cooled down. No dice. After a moment to clear my head, I went back.
This time, I had a floor jack. I lifted the Cougar high enough to get my hand around the back of the subframe and control arms. Nothing! I was on the verge of giving up, but since the 5.0 wore long-tube headers, I decided to run my fingers around the two upper tubes, as far upstream as I could go, and down to the header’s collector. Lo and behold, the missing ARP bolt was resting within those “bundle of snakes.”
That was certainly a fun day for me. Maybe next time I will rent a car for a vacation. Nah, probably not—old cars are way more fun.
But no matter, we must now hear from you:
Where is the worst place you’ve dropped something?
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One of two tiny 8mm bolts holding the bracket for the throttle cables on an 01 Disco fell down the front of the engine while I was removing it. It never hit the ground, nor could I see where it came to rest. Flailed around for an hour with a magnet just blindly hoping to come across it. Disassembly included radiator shroud, fan clutch, serpentine belt, alternator, and ac compressor before I found it hiding behind a pulley. Then reassemble all of the above before being ready to continue the job I had originally set out to do (remove the upper intake manifold). My wife and kids were wise to avoid me the rest of that day.
The worst – my buddy was working on a Ford pickup that had a seized/broken spark plug – the Ford with the cab halfway over the engine – and yes the seized plug was in the back. He had made some sort of tool out of a socket that got stuck in the spark plug tube. I had made an extractor tool to expand inside the socket and hopefully get the socket out… the plug was still another mission. I had dropped the tool and assumed it went under the intake. Unknown to me, the rest of the plugs were out, and it went down a spark plug hole, into a cylinder that had to be at bottom dead center. I was shown my pancaked, but very recognizable extractor tool about three weeks later – then it was off to pull the cab and replace the engine
Had an aunt put a key on the dash of my moms car. Went down the defroster. Left it there.
I found quite a few nuts in between in intake manifold and the valley pan on our old Firebird. Probably from the early 1970’s whenGrandpa was tinkering with it. Never found them until we pulled the entire top of the engine off lol
Dropped the key to my ’79 Honda CBX 6-cylinder bike while at a rural private waterski lake back in the day. Easy peasey right, big shiny key dropped just as I removed it from the ignition. Nope, after an hour of more and more frantic searching by myself and a freind, I caught a hint of a shiny reflection. The key had fallen precisely between two cooling fins, perfectly on its long-edge, hiding itself almost completely. That was 40-years ago…
Two times. First was after staying up all night to reassemble and install my rebuilt 409 engine into my 1963 Impala. Last task was to install the distributor and set the initial timing and start it. The distributor hold down clip fell into the hole where the distributor is installed at the back of the intake manifold. After a few choice words, I calmed down and found my extractor tool (the one with the thumb pushbutton and the four prongs that come out) and carefully removed the clip. I envisioned having to pull the engine and disassembe it to remove the clip. Got lucky.
Another time, I was not so lucky. I dropped a spark plug from the right-hand engine bank into the headers of a friend’s 1970 396 big block Chevelle. I couldn’t see or remove the offending spark plug. “It will drop out while driven” I figured. Instead, a few days later my friend calls and says “My starter shorted out. Apparently there was a spark plug down there from when you changed the plugs last week”. Not good…
Replacing the charge tube on my 335i. The barrel on the clamp fell down and landed somewhere on the belly pan under the engine.
Had to jack up the car and completely remove the pan (about 20 screws) to get to it.
Dropped a very small nut down the carb on a 1964 289 Ford V8. Couldn’t get it even after taking the carb off. Took all the spark plugs out and spun the engine over with the starter and it shot out and ended up somewhere lost in the basement. Would not recommend that solution, but it worked one time for me.
i lost an LED light in the IP of my 66 mustang took me almost 2 hours to find it it was the last light on the left hand side of the IP and i found it on top of where the ashtray sits just above it .some how it flew 18 inches across the back of the IP was fit to be tied looking for it
Adjusting the values on an Alfa Romeo 1750 engine requires removing the two overhead cam shafts, which of course requires removing the timing chain. Of course, don’t ever let that timing chain fall into the oil pan! Which is exactly what I did. It took awhile, but I was able to fish out the chain with a long magnet. Never made that mistake again.
Dropped many things in the grease pit in the wash bay of the service station (back when they were service stations) that I worked at in my teens and early 20’s. I was a mixture of stagnant water mixed with grease, old oil and dirt. Found a lot of things when we had to clean out the “grease trap” drain.
My daughter liked to help me work on the Cuda. I had her holding a wrench under the dash while I tightened on the other side of the firewall in the engine bay. I later discovered that a 7/16” combination was missing, and no idea where it could be. Found the wrench 6 years later exactly where she had been holding it under the dash and had simply left it there on the fastener. It had not moved . . .
V12 Jag Rad cap. Right there! Never found it.
The worst for me is I don’t know until I find it which may be never at this point
While restoring my 1929 Model A Town Sedan, I’d finished the engine and chassis. I’d put a “dash” made of a plank on it to start it and move it. For whatever reason I had the top of the transmission off. I was fiddling with something on the wooden dash and dropped a small sheet metal screw. It bounced right into the open trans with a “Ploop.” I fished for it with a flex magnet, drained the trans, used kerosene, then compressed air and zero luck. I even raised one side of the chassis. No screw. I began to wonder if it had actually gone into the transmission, Then a few days later I walked by, looked into the trans and there was the screw. I easily plucked it out with my magnet. To this day if I have a top cover off anything, I put a piece of cardboard on it.
Adjusting the valve timing on a Fiat Spider. I had the spark plugs out so I didn’t have to work against the engine compression as I manually turned the engine over to move each cam lobe into position to check and then change the spacer out if need be. When I finished the job and started reassembling everything I consciously decided to leave the spark plugs out just in case I needed to turn the engine over for some reason. Then I dropped one of the last bolts. It bounced once off each cam cover before disappearing down the No. 1 spark plug hole. I walked a mile to the Sears and back to get a magnet on a stick. It was too large to fit into the spark plug hole. I cut it apart to get the magnet out, glued the magnet in the end of an old shoe string, and gently lowered that into the hole. I managed to get the bolt out on my second try. Put the spark plug back in and then finished putting things back together.