I need good juju right now!

Gone in 60

Gone in 60

Road warrior
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If I weren't at work fuming, I'd be sipping some brown party likker right now and ruminating over my current situation.

I'm doing a valve adjustment on my Bonneville, and after extracting my exhaust camshaft to pull the buckets and shims, I took my rag that was covering all of the holes in the head to spread out over the engine as a dust cover.

In the process, I didn't notice that one of the locating dowels for a cam cap had fallen into the towel (they're little buggers), and as I moved the towel, I watched in slow motion as the dowel fell down the breather pipe and into the block.

I've gone at it with a telescoping magnet stick, a flexible claw grabber, and last night made a flexible tool with a magnet stuck on the end of some 1/4" vinyl fuel hose.

I know it's just a matter of time. And alcohol. I've got time to kill, as I have shims and seals on order, and I plan to go at it daily as I have time, until I hear the magic click of metal attaching to magnet.

Any positive energy would be appreciated.
 
The Forum Secret Decoder Ring is powerful indeed—but with it’s own mind. I’ve asked it to move the dowel into a position such that you can get it easily. I hope it does. :)

Is it possible that it will come out if you drain the oil?

I know you won’t, but do not just say oh well. On the ST1300 board a member related a story where his mechanic dropped a shim into the engine, left it, and delivered the bike to the member. That shim destroyed the engine. A big legal fight ensued. Mech lost.
 
Thread starter
Thanks, Popgun, I can feel the energy already. I tried draining the oil into a pan, then funneling it down the breather tube with the drain plug off twice in hopes that it would flush out of the oil drain hole, but no luck. With the shims and cam cover seals that I ordered, I added an oil pan gasket just in case. With luck, the oil flushed it into the drain sump, and if not, I'll have some sizable holes in the bottom of the engine to fish around at least.

I can see a shim destroying an engine. That's not a small piece of metal!

No, not going to leave it. It may never do a thing, but I'd always know it was there... At least I have the CB, so I'm not without a bike during the interim. And all because just one exhaust valve was out of spec. Way out of spec, or I may have well enough left it alone.
 
Could you perhaps suck it out with a flexible vinyl hose connected to a brake fluid bleeder connected to an air compressor to create a vacuum ?
With the flexible tube you can move it around and see if you could suck it up to the hose and hopefully remove it. At Harbor Freight the bleeders are less than $ 30 and very useful for many jobs.
 
Thread starter
I already tried to neck down a shop vac and fish around with that...
 
Is the hole it fell through big enough so you can send one of those 5.5 mm. usb borescope camera's down it and have a look?
They also come with a magnet attachment in front of the camera and you can tape a piece of copper or steel wire along the little cable to steer the camera around, sounds easy doesn't it?
 
Don’t have any suggestions. The bore scope, magnet, and draining the sump are all good ideas. Any chance you have a photo?
 
I once dropped the key to my ST 1300 and it fell between the tank and the frame by the headstock. Had to take half the bike apart to retrieve it. It was crazy.
 
Possibly lean the bike WAY over then try the magnet. Possible it caught on something and didn't drop to the bottom ?
 
Probably a dumb idea, but before you resort to tearing down the engine, perhaps you could pull it out of the frame, flip it over, and give it a few firm love taps. Maybe the shim will find its way out.
 
Thread starter
Popgun, I owe you one. Please send an address to which I can ship a new can of Brasso and a cotton diaper so that it may be lovingly polished with my gratitude.

A shipment I needed for a work project was delayed, so, admittedly I slacked off and spent much of the day studying the curved inner casting of the lower cylinder block from online photos, and imagined the path of travel the dowel would have taken. When I got home from work, I bent a coat hangar to that curve and slid it inside my home made fuel hose magnet tool.

Fifteen minutes of uninterrupted fishing (my wife is stuck in traffic coming home tonight) and I heard the magic click, and up she came.

I danced around listening to Handel’s Messiah which is still playing in my head to this moment. Then, I wiped all of my oily prints off of the machine, covered her and plugged in the tender to await shims and seals. She sleeps, perchance to dream of looser exhaust valves.

The weight of a thousand nightmares of engine disassembly are lifted. I reach for a very special bottle, and my lovely wife will just have to deal with whatever condition with which it renders me
 
Are you saying the dowel pin dropped down into the rubber breather hose aft of the cylinders? If so, you're lucky. That breather doesn't go into the crankcase per se.

It goes into the breather passage at at the top of the block, makes a right turn and heads into the breather pipe in the clutch cover. It will be stuck in the breather pipe because it necks down severely.

Pull the clutch cover off, and the breather pipe will come off with it.



 
Awesome news! Cellar Master Cormamus please break out libations for all!!
 
Congratulations Gin60! I know the anguish you endured. I almost lost a tappet screw down the block of a Virago 1100. The hot, humid, mosquito-filled summer night was turgid with curse'ed words and unstoppable sweat. Then, like you, "Klink". The darkness lifted. I found my Precious.
 
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