Okay, so around the end of last month I discovered that my head gasket was on its way out. Bummer, of course, but I set about planning a potential fixing session. Finally managed to get the tools and parts required together and organise a friend with a garage and a spacious driveway to help me out, and set about installing a new gasket set and timing belt with the Haynes and Porter manuals to guide us, along with some choice FF threads
Well the process became a 2-weekender when I decided it really was best to get the head skimmed but hey, no big deal. Got all that done and went back to my friend's place to finish the job last weekend. Unfortunately while cleaning the old gasket/carbon off the top of the engine block the previous weekend, we had got some residue into the head bolt holes, which I'd initially missed on the guides as being something to avoid.
So, I went out and bought some pipe cleaners (of the tobacco-pipe cleaning variety), so that we could clean out the holes as best we could, which we did. Only here comes the "mishap" -- I wasn't concentrating as I was about to clean the second hole -- and it turned out not to be a bolt hole.... I realised this just as I dropped the pipe cleaner in, expecting it to rest a couple of inches down.... only to find it had dropped down through the engine block and out of sight. So now it appears I have a pipe cleaner in my sump. :bang:
The next unfortunate bit is that I can't seem to remove the sump to fish out the pipe cleaner, as the bolts start rounding off whenever I try to undo them. I was going to try and get a local mechanic to come around and do the job for me with his own decent tools (he apparently does various engine jobs at people's home addresses), but he's not got a free slot for a good few weeks. He actually said though that I could just leave it in there and not worry about it...!
Sooooo.... what does anyone else think? I wouldn't really have any detailed knowledge of the internals of an engine, but my initial thoughts were that this was a piece of steel wire (about 3 inches long) that will need to come out, otherwise it might get caught in the crankshaft mechanism, or block up the oil circulation system or something...? Or will it just sit harmlessly in the bottom of the sump/in a filter somewhere?
Well the process became a 2-weekender when I decided it really was best to get the head skimmed but hey, no big deal. Got all that done and went back to my friend's place to finish the job last weekend. Unfortunately while cleaning the old gasket/carbon off the top of the engine block the previous weekend, we had got some residue into the head bolt holes, which I'd initially missed on the guides as being something to avoid.
So, I went out and bought some pipe cleaners (of the tobacco-pipe cleaning variety), so that we could clean out the holes as best we could, which we did. Only here comes the "mishap" -- I wasn't concentrating as I was about to clean the second hole -- and it turned out not to be a bolt hole.... I realised this just as I dropped the pipe cleaner in, expecting it to rest a couple of inches down.... only to find it had dropped down through the engine block and out of sight. So now it appears I have a pipe cleaner in my sump. :bang:
The next unfortunate bit is that I can't seem to remove the sump to fish out the pipe cleaner, as the bolts start rounding off whenever I try to undo them. I was going to try and get a local mechanic to come around and do the job for me with his own decent tools (he apparently does various engine jobs at people's home addresses), but he's not got a free slot for a good few weeks. He actually said though that I could just leave it in there and not worry about it...!
Sooooo.... what does anyone else think? I wouldn't really have any detailed knowledge of the internals of an engine, but my initial thoughts were that this was a piece of steel wire (about 3 inches long) that will need to come out, otherwise it might get caught in the crankshaft mechanism, or block up the oil circulation system or something...? Or will it just sit harmlessly in the bottom of the sump/in a filter somewhere?