I was taking off the cover of the HPOP when a corner of my puddy knife broke off. It broke off when I was working on the cover towards the front of the truck. It is about 1/2 to 3/4 of the size of a dime. I have searched everywhere in there with a mirror and a magnet. I searched eveything that I could see and feel. It must have dropped down past the cam.

WHAT NOW?? I feel sick.

Thanks.

 

Gotta find it, and in the future know that putty knives aren't pry bars.

 

I already feel like an a$$ hole, and am sick about the whole deal. Thanks. The instructions say to use a putty knife and don't pry on it because you can break it.

Does anyone know where it went if it got down by the cam. I looked everywhere up top and it just isn't up there. I would love to find it. But just can't. I am still looking for it against all hope.

If it went down past the cam would it end up working to the oil pan, or would it be trapped somewhere? I may have to put it together like this.

What are the options, and chances on them??

Any help/ advice is appreciated

 

Drain the oil and see if it comes out, it not try a magnet throught the drain hole. If you still can't find it 6.0 oil pans are not to bad to remove.

 

Not sure if they all are, but my drain plug is magnetic. I haven't been into a 6.0 that far, but I would think it would now be on a crankshaft counter weight or big end of a connecting rod. I hate it for you and I'm just not sure what I would do in that situation. There's a lot to consider. I'm not saying it would be ok, but at least turn it over a few revolutions by hand and pray it find it's way to the oil pan. Once it's down there odds for survival get better. I'll leave you with this (from experience). If you don't find it, that little piece of metal will bug you from now on, it would be easier to unbolt the engine mounts and jack the engine and pull the pan, than to do an engine swap or rebuild. And much cheaper.

 

I agree with Rusty
One other place it could be is between the crank and rod cap or main bearing cap.
This part I am not sure on. I may be using the wrong name for this and the 6.0 may
not even have one. If there is a windage tray it will fall onto that.What it would do
it there is on is keep the oil in the pan from sloshing up onto the crank at turn,stop and what not.
Have you looked on the floor or the engine bay?

I really hope that you find that. I have dropped a nut inside a aircraft
and spent some time looking for it. I found it and not where I was looking.

Sean

 

First off thanks guys for the words of encouragement and help.

I almost have it back together, I drained about 10 qts of oil out and flushed it down the HPOP hole last night. I thought it may wash it down to the pan. I am probably going to try and turn the motor by hand each way a turn, then try and pull the pan and look for it.

Does anyone know if if it makes it to the pan can it be drawn up by the oil pump, or does it have a screen on it to prevent that?????

 

These may help:

FilterMAG TM180 - FilterMAG Oil Pan Magnets - Overview - SummitRacing.com

 

what you seem to have, is a small, flat, relatively lightweight
piece of material, that has gone down into a nice oily engine.

so, it could stick to any oily surface, horizontal or vertical.

now, ridgid tools makes a thing called a see snake, a handheld color
inspection camera. so does milwualkee, but the ridgid one has
an accessory camera head that is really little. most of these have
a camera head that is 3/4" or bigger in diameter.

the rigid accessory one will fit thru a 3/8" hole. it's your best chance
of getting inside the engine for a look see. but even if you can see it,
you have to get it out of the engine. it sounds like it's too big to fit
thru the oil drain plug hole. and flooding the engine with oil probably
washed it from where it was to where it is now, so it'll be harder to find.

now the oil flow thru this engine is huge, so it will most likely get flushed
to the bottom of the oil pan, where it will slosh around. if it gets between
moving components, it'll probably get chewed up, and the shreddies will
get picked up by the pickup and collected by the oil filter.

the problem would be more in my head than in the engine. it'd make
me nuts driving around wondering.... i'd pull the engine, take it apart,
and then.... find the thing somewhere in the engine compartment....

most of the things we dread never happen. there was a 9" pair of
channellock pliers that got dropped into the main compressor stage
of the one of the peaker units at La Poloma powerhouse, outside of
bakersfield, calif.

into the turbine of a 250 megawatt gas turbine. you can't turn it over
and shake it till they fall out.

far as i know, they are still there. it's been 9 years.

good luck...

 

Can he pour a large amount of diesel or something similar down crankcase to help wash it towards the drain plug ???

 

Thanks again to everyone for your help and thoughts about this problem.

Here is an update on what I have done since the last post. I went to home depot and got a <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com</st1:City>Milwaukee inspection camera. It has a nice little probe, and great picture. I have thought about getting one of these a time or two for home improvement projects anyway. So I pulled the turbo, and cover back off the HPOP and took a good long look around in there. I am sure it isn't above the cam.

I then put the probe up in the oil drain to have a look around. It is very difficult to see much in there since the pan is black, and has an oily reflective coating. I then started to pull off the oil pan. I am not sure if the bell housing is different with the manual transmission, but I couldn't get the pan off. I had the engine jacked up, but just couldn't quite get enough room to remove it. Plus having that engine jacked up is a little scary and I didn't really want to really get in there too much. So with it loose I took a good look around the upper pan and everywhere else I could see with the inspection camera. Still couldn't find it. There is a screen on the suction pipe to prevent it from being sucked back up into the pump. That is good.

Since pulling and engine is well above my technical abilities I figure I am going to just run it and hope for the best. Before this mess I thought that an EGR delete, and STC fitting replacement weren’t above my abilities.

I ordered a magnet from Jegs, it is larger, cheaper, and has the same strength as the one from Summit that Bismic posted. I put the oil back on and put the magnet below the suction line. I cranked it for a few seconds, then let is sit for an hour. I did that two more times. I was hoping it would fall down in the pan and suck onto the magnet. I then started the truck and let it run for about a min. I did that two more times.

I am now just going to drive it and hope the engine and magnet gods are with me. I am building a deck right now and have been running it to Lowes and all around all weekend. So far, so good, knock on wood. I do have my fingers crossed as I drive. It is my daily driver so I will be taking it to work all week, about 25 miles one way. I may drain the oil this coming weekend and see if the magnet has got it yet. Unless the engine melts down before this weekend.

I still feel really stupid about the whole thing. At least my wife didn't kill me when I told her the story. She said that all the things I fixed around the house and all the car repairs over the years still will not add up to having the engine replace if needed. Chalk it up to **** happens.

At least I made it to work today. I will post it if melts down, or if I get the piece out.

Thanks again guys.

 

Best of luck. One note, if the broken piece is stainless steel, it is nonmagnetic.

 

That is extemely risky IMHO.

Just the thought of what that little piece could do internally to that motor, wouldn't allow me to sleep at night knowing that's floating around in the motor.