I am in the middle of the infamous intake manifold seal leak and I was chasing the threads in the heads to clean out all the sealant gunk with a tap. Wouldn't you know the tap came lose and feel in the small hole in the back of the block. I am not sure where this hole goes to, it goes straight down, does it come out in the oil pan? do I need to pull the whole motor now??? Any help would soooo appreciated.

 

Can you describe the location of the hole? or point it out on this pic?

 

Update: I looked with a mirror and flashlight and sure enough I could see it sitting kinda sideways in front of the hole, I tried using a screwdriver and strong magnet to get it out but to no avail, then often sudden I heard it clank, hit something and then a deep thud which 99% sounded like it hit the bottom of the oil pan since it came from way down low. Now that its in the oil pan is there any danger of it making its way up either through bouncing?

 

Hey James, thanks for the quick response, it feel on where I put the green arrow on the picture

http://74.52.120.223/ci270-1.jpg

 

It needs to come out. Try draining the oil and see if you can fish it out using a telescopic magnet through the drain hole.

 

Exactly, if you can get it out though that or the passage it fell down, great.
If not, it sounds like you may be dropping the pan.
You do NOT want to run that motor with a foreign object in there, it will
eventually get picked up and do some serious damage.

The oil level sensor may be another hole to try fishing it from.

 

Thanks for the help guys! I will try draining the oil when I am all done with the reinstall. Out of curiosity, how would it get picked up, it fell in the deep part of the pan and away from the oil pump pickup.

 

Telescoping magnet on a stick. Everyone should have one of these in their toolbox.

 

Thanks James! Where is the best place to buy one of these on a Sunday in SoCal?

 

Any parts or tool store should have them

 

Awesome I am going there tomorrow now it's time for a shower and some sack time. Thanks all!

 

Ok, so I decided to take the advice of removing the oil pan to remove the tap I lost. Well I got to the first bolt that connects the y-pipe to the header and it snapped right off, not a great start to this "project". I did research yesterday on here on people that have taken out the oil pan and I have read anything from having to replace the timing chain cover seal, broken oil pan bolts, broken starter bolts so now considering that this car has never been broken into I am really really really concerned that by trying to take of the oil and having to jack up the engine to do that, I am opening pandora's box to all sorts of other problems. Long story short I have made the decision that if the tap has made it to the bottom of the pan, its fine to stay there. The car has almost 150K miles on it so a new engine is in its future anyways. My question to all of you out there is this. The tap fell through the hole in the back of the block, I heard it hit oil and about a 1/2 second later I heard it hit what I think is the bottom of the pan, but could it be the baffle plate? is this plate submerged in the oil? I have taken off the oil level sensor and have spent a little time looking with a magnet but nothing yet. I have never seen one of these LT1's with the pan off so I don't know what it looks like with the oil pump/pickup. Any help on where you think it ended up at would be greatly appreciated! I realize that I will get some slack for not pulling the pan but this car is a daily driver and I can just not afford for it the be out another 3-4 days while I try to get this done and who knows what other problems I might actually be creating.

 

You wanna hear a funny story, I was working on a D8 dozer, and we had the engine opened up. No **** right in front of the customer my elbo hit a rock and it fell into the engine, and I heard it hit the oil pan. Now that rock isn't going anywhere, and cannot be sucked into the pickup. Now dropping the pan on a D8 is a BIG job, that rock has been in there for the last 8 years, no trouble to the engine.

If you had metal shavings, or dirt, or something that could be sucked into the oil pump pickup, sure drop the pan, get it out.

Another true story. A buddy of mine's parents had a 98SS. They always took it to the dealer for service. One oil change, the threads of a bolt came out of the oil drain hole, but the tech couldn't pull it out because the head was still on the bolt. It was a rod bolt. They removed the pan and found that all bolts were in place. That car always had a spare rod bolt in the pan, and it had 56k miles on it.

Take this with a grain of sand, but Id leave it in there.

 

"if" that is in fact where the thing landed. Do you know for sure? If you start it up and its somewhere else in the engine, you just made a really expensive discovery that you were wrong.

 

It's not worth trashing your engine for an hour or two job.