zipdang Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 My idiocy? I dropped a nut down the carb opening on my 1959 Fiat Granluce 1200. After venting myself thoroughly, I took my shop vac, attached the largest hose I could and still insert it into the manifold and started vacuuming in any direction I could. After about 20 minutes, I heard it get sucked up! I sorted through the vacuum concents to make sure it was there and, therefore, I was quite lucky. Don't know if this method would work for you since an allen wrench is such a differct animal, but you might be able to hear it knocking around to know where it may have lodged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe in Canada Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 I had a valve seat come out in my diesel engine in an industrial loader two years ago and not a pretty site. It had to make room so it broke the head, piston and split the cylinder wall. Was not a cheap fix so I would be vey carful on something entering a combustion chamber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padgett Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 Thanks for the tip, I just ordered one of these. Under $20 for a 2MP borescope with 4/5 reviews. Such a deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Harwood Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 Whatever it was made of, it wasn't getting past a valve without doing some damage. If there's no damage and it can't be found, then it didn't go down the intake. Determining whether there is no damage is easy: take the heads off. Everything else is speculation. Could it have gone through the intake valve, broken up in the combustion chamber, and gone out the exhaust without doing any damage to any of those components operating at mind-boggling speeds? Well, maybe, but the chances are so remote I'd rather bet on winning the lottery while being eaten by a shark that's being struck by lightning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benjamin j Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 On 7/6/2016 at 7:42 PM, hammer280 said: Hey everyone Well, long story short; I dropped an allen key into the intake manifold on my 1974 Charger big block. I totally forgot about it for a long time. And here's the circumstances. I had just received a brand new Edelbrock 750 cfm carburetor and was excited as hell to put it on. At one point in time something very small required a accordingly small Allen key while I had the old carburetor off --putting the new one on of course-- and then just now remembered that I may have dropped the Allen key into the intake manifold at the time. Mind you, the car has ran and drove several times since then, but it has a hard miss when the accelerator is really stomped on. I've dialed the carburetor in COUNTLESS times and it runs perfectly fine in park. I mean, seriously --no misses, choke ups, grinding, banging, clacking etc-- runs great... But, whenever it's actually driving on the road, it has a big miss (like it's a distributor or fuel problem) at high rpm. So my question would be this : what would be the symptoms of an Allen key either getting lodged at the valve, getting stuck on the top of a piston, or getting lodged in the exhaust manifold? And also, what would the chances be of the Allen key straight getting eaten by the huge wedge of the 440 and just not causing any problems at all? Because, I have straight taken the intake off, sat on top of the motor, and looked for over 2hr in each runner (yea, seriously, this happened and it sucked... No comfortable position whilst sitting on the top of an engine) to see if the Allen key would be obviously sitting on top of the valve, or get wedged and not enter the combustion chamber. But, I cannot find a d*** thing. So, just give me some input on what you think I should do, because this car was inherited and I would be devastated if something catastrophic happened to it. (At one point in time something very small required a accordingly small Allen key) This sounds pretty small and if it came with the carb then it was likely poor quality steel made in China. Yes it likely made marks in an aluminum piston top before it was wadded up and shot out the exhaust if it ever did get into a cylinder. allen wrenches bend when over exerted if they were hard steel they would brake and slice your hand like a knife. even combination wrenches and ratchets are made to bend for the safety of the person using them. you can buy some sockets that have been hardened to a Rockwell hardness high enough to shatter but still nowhere near the equivalent of tool steel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty_OToole Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 My guess is the allen wrench never went down the carb or he would have found it. One in a million chance it went thru an intake valve, if it did it bent the valve and a compression test will prove it. If all cylinders check out good,and it wasn't in the carburetor, and it wasn't in the intake, and it wasn't in the ports, then it didn't go down the carburetor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maok Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 4 hours ago, Rusty_OToole said: My guess is the allen wrench never went down the carb or he would have found it. One in a million chance it went thru an intake valve, if it did it bent the valve and a compression test will prove it. If all cylinders check out good,and it wasn't in the carburetor, and it wasn't in the intake, and it wasn't in the ports, then it didn't go down the carburetor Agreed. If the engine is roaring like a lion and there are no signs of damage, its either stuck in one of the inlet ports or never went down there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hammer280 Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Hey sorry guys I haven't had a chance to respond. I may just resort to pulling the heads... Might tell me some more about the condition of the rest of the motor anyways. Thanks for all the help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty_OToole Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 You may not need to pull the heads. Do a compression test first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hammer280 Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 30 minutes ago, Rusty_OToole said: You may not need to pull the heads. Do a compression test first. That was the plan. A friend of mine has one. I've procrastinated so badly on getting one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JACK M Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 SHEESH ! Resort to pulling heads? Its a 30 minute job on that engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty_OToole Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 How about putting them back on? Why do all that work for no reason? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 For "peace of mind". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padgett Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Seems to work pretty good for a double sawbuck (inside desktop, garage is too hot). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Schramm Posted July 11, 2016 Share Posted July 11, 2016 On 7/6/2016 at 10:16 PM, Matt Harwood said: Sorry, I missed the part about already pulling the intake. At this point, are you sure it actually went down the intake? I just can't see how an allen key, even a little one, could get past a valve that's opening and closing 400 times a minute at idle and thousands of times a minute on the road. If it got to the valve, it would HAVE to do some damage that you could see. At the very least, the seat would be damaged and the valve would be tweeted a little bit, and that would show up pretty quickly. A compression test and a leakdown test would be good ideas at this point--if there's a damaged valve, it'll leak. Ed, it's not a flathead, it's a '74 383 or 440, I believe. Just for a point of reference, here is a picture of a nut that fell into the intake and the valve from the cylinder that it fell into. Smile about the rest of the damage to the engine from this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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