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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This wasn’t me dropping something but the funniest thing I saw dropped and then retrieved was when someone dropped a bolt or small part down the tall fuel injection stacks on a McLaren M8 at the Vancouver Vintage races. I think it was aluminum so the magnets weren’t working. They were trying everything to no avail. A call went out on the PA for a small child who would be able to help – it wasn’t long before a fellow racer brought his 4 yr old daughter over offering her services. Dad held the little girl upside down over the stacks and she reached down and managed to grab the missing piece.
Big round of applause from the many folks who had gathered to watch!
Way way back in the 70ties, I was just finishing assembling the Lotus twin cam in my 73 Jensen Healey and dropped valve cover bolt onto the head, it was like a pinball machine bouncing around until it found a hole and disappeared. Had to take the whole thing back apart, found it in the water pump. Don’t know how it got there, but maybe that’s why it always ran terrible!
I removed the distributor on the 428 in my 1967 Shelby GT500. The o’ring (or clip) to retain the hex drive shaft from the oil pump to the distributor failed (or wasn’t there). Just as the distributor was about to clear the intake manifold, CLUNK! the shaft fell into the oil pan. You could loosen the oil pan but not remove it completely with the engine installed. Fortunately I convinced by 7 year old daughter (the one with the small hands) to reach in the oil pan and retrieve the hex drive shaft.
Working at our Dodge dealership right after high school, I had the heads off a 383 for a valve job with the block still in the car, a big Chrysler. Getting some things ready for reassembly, I managed to drop a socket down one of the exhaust pipes. Hearing it slide 3 or 4 feet down the pipe, no magnet was ever going to make it down that steel pipe. I opted to leave it rather than pull the entire exhaust. I was very surprised the customer never returned complaining about a rattle.
Thirty years ago I was riding with my brother in law in his dad’s ‘81 F-150. We made a stop for bbq and in a moment of temporary insanity he casually tossed the keys on the dash…where they proceeded to fall into the passenger side defrost vent. After thirty minutes of attempting to fish the keys out with a section of electric fence wire we started removing screws. We finally retrieved the keys but (miraculously) ended up with more screws than we’d started with. I guess you can’t hide talent. He never told his dad and Lord knows we both were relieved when his dad traded that truck off.
I was working as a mechanic at a Honda motorcycle dealership in the 1970’s. While changing sparkplugs on a CB750 – or maybe it was a 500?, one of the plugs slid down a cavity in the cylinder head. Tried everything I could think of to get that plug out of there. Only managed to push it down so far I couldn’t see or reach it. Eventually gave up and sent the bike out the door. Never heard another thing about it. I’m sure the bike went to its grave with the extra plug still in the head.
Dropped a helicoil into the timing chain area of my daughter’s car. That cause a brief series of “Oh crap!” exclamations. Thankfully, it didn’t fall all the way down and was fairly easily removed with a magnet.
I was trying to fix stripped valve cover bolts that were causing a tremendous vacuum and oil leak. The shop that installed it probably used an impact driver and overtorqued well past the 71 in/lbs required.
A few years back I replaced the v6 eng in my wife’s 04 nssan exterra, I dropped & lost 3, 14mm sockets, and to this day I have never found them
I know this is supposed to be automotive related, and I’m sure if my memory cells were more awake, I’d recall a good story of dropping something into or onto a vehicle, but for now, the thing that jumped out at me was the time I dropped my chainsaw about 60 feet while topping out a Ponderosa Pine on our property. I was not at my best – safety wise – that day. Working alone, without a saw strap or trunk harness, I climbed up through the branches, primed the saw, and on the first pull, dropped it. It clattered and clanked through the branches and made it all the way to the ground, breaking a part of the plastic air filter cover on a rock. I had no choice but to climb all the way down, clean it up, and take it back up again. I was exhausted before I even started working! Then I had to explain to Mrs. DUB6 why the filter cover was missing. I’m sure SHE was exhausted by the time she was through chewing me out! 😆
All could see in my mind was “Pachingko” but w/ chainsaws
All could see in my mind was “Pachingko” but w/ chainsaws
Although not a car, the worst place I have ever dropped a wrench is in the belly of a bull dozer. I had to crawl under with a jack and a wrench to unbolt the pan. Ugh!
How about dropping my wedding ring down the post hole of a pickup bed rail? Had to cut open a rib under the bed to retrieve it. And it wasn’t my truck.
While turning my 409 while in storage for its quarterly turn, I was spraying some aerosol lube in the cylinder and the plastic tube blew off can and into cylinder. Being plastic that ain’t coming out though I have tried many times. I’ve purchased a top end gasket set. Argggg…..
I dropped a hardtop mounting bolt (one of four) behind the seat of my 62 vette. I found, and ordered a whole new set thinking that I wanted all of them to match. I wait 3 weeks for delivery and installed the new ones…well I installed 3 or them and promptly dropped the 4th one in the same spot I lost the earlier one.
I just ordered 2 more hoping that I don’t drop one (or two). History seems to repeat itself.