We were changing the timing cover off my 79' ford and come pieces of gasket/RTV fell into the oil pan. There were several SMALL pieces that fell in. Is there any way to get them out besides drop the pan? Drooping the pan would be a booger since the cross member wont allow me to drop the pan without having to pull the motor. After that, we drained the oil and changed it.. Once we started it it had a small tick. I just dont want the motor to be oil deprived because of a clog and I'd feel better knowing that was out of the pan itself....please help. Im clueless. Could you shop vac it out ? We also tried to flush it with some oil.

 

Shop vac it for sure. Pour a couple quarts of oil down where they went to rinse it into the oil in the pan then change the oil.

 

As far as the "tick" how is the oil pressure? If pressure is adequate and normal the top end of the engine should be getting plenty of oil. Larger bits of gasket would get caught by the screen on the oil pickup. Too much could plug it and cause low OP... but I have seen fully functional engines with a great deal of crud down there. Smaller bits would get mangled by the pump and caught in the filter.

 

Well, my brother swears its an exhaust leak. He says it doesn't sound like a rod issue or whatnot (I'm not too vehicle oriented) These pieces of gasket weren't tiny but weren't big, a few were maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 inch long and very thin and etc. The motor didn't seem to have a ticking type sound before we changed this timing chain, although under the truck it sounded more noticeable and louder. We replaced the plug wires in the process. Perhaps the plug wires (the other wires were SHOT) have it running stronger therefore making the tick more noticeable.

 

Lifters could be ticking, camshaft could be worn out.

 

use a pipe to your ear and narrow down the noise

 

Yes a piece of wooden dowl ( cut off 3 ft piece of broom handle) or even a plastic tipped #4 screwdriver can help locate a tic/knock.

Like he said one end of the rod on the moter, one to your ear, we are not kidding about this.

Small pieces of gasket should be no problem, maybe some mechanical fingers can grab them?

 

If it has exhaust manifolds, my bet is a slight leak where the pipe clamps to the manifold. There is no gasket, just a flange that pulls the cone shaped mouth of the pipe up onto the cone of the manifold.

If you had caught it before putting the timing cover "plate" and parts back on, a small vacuum hose (like you use on computer keyboards) "might" would have been of some use with a light and small mirror .... "maybe".

 

Or they do make special stethoscopes for listening to your engine. I bought one a long time ago and it's still new in the package so I guess I haven't had a ny mystery noise in awhile now.