Colin Hartigan

I need help badly and I know I can get it here. So I had a shop do some work for me and apparently they used a impact to put the valve cover bolts back on. The bolts were torqued down to 240 inch pounds when they're only supposed to be at 86 inch pounds. The spark plug tube seals broke allowing oil into the tubes... One of the bolts was broken so I was going to EZ out it but in the process of drilling the hole the metal drill bit broke and fell down the (intake manifold side) back side left oil passage on my civic D17a2 engine. It was one of the dumbest things I have ever done. I do not know how many pieces fell into the passage, so I can't exactly take a magnet down there because I won't know if I got everything out. I guess I will have to drop the oil pan, anything else. How can I be almost certain that I got everything out, I looked down the passage and it looks like it goes straight down so that makes it a little better. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you all.

tkcne

This sounds more serious than the junebug I dropped down mine. It ended up in the pan.

The first step to dropping the pan would be to drain the oil. I'd try that and see if they come out. Then archaeologically reconstruct the pieces to see if they look like a whole drill bit?

Colin Hartigan

Yeah, I was just talking with some guys I know who are experienced mechanics and they're coming over, we're going to drain the oil with a strainer underneath to see if any fragments come out, then drop the pan. My buddy said we'd go from there. then go through the passage with a stick magnet and try to stick any debri, then go at it from underneath. Hopefully we'll get everything out.

ezone

More than once I have had to retrieve something that fell into one of those holes, usually use a magnet (on an antenna) without problems ---but one time I poked it down one of those holes and got it stuck, another time I had the magnet pop out of its holder and stay in the engine LOL

Both times I had to pull the pan off.
Cuss a while, realize cussing isn't solving the problem....Suck it up and get it over with.

If you are drilling a broken bolt, left-hand drill bits can sometimes work miracles.

mikey1

i would try a magnet first,

keep the broken piece you have left in the drill and assemble the bit back together as you collect pieces out of the engine, you should be able to tell by looking if you have all the pieces, they should fit together like puzzle pieces,

if you have another identical bit you can match the pieces up beside that to see if they are the same length,

in my experience drill bits normally only break one piece off, not multiple pieces, they dont shatter like glass, they just snap like a twig

piano55man

i would definitely back charge the shop for your labor rate and parts...