Help! I'm A Moron (valve Cover Gasket)

[berniemac]

I ordered a replacement gasket and recieved the wrong one (only after I removed the old one did I realize it was 'different'). I was a little hastily putting the cover back on and heard a washer drop...wait for it...down one of the spark plug holes! ghead A PERFECT FIT! Well, there's a little room to move, but not much. How can I get this out without turning the engine over and shaking it REAL hard? ...day two... I pick up the right gasket set from my local indie. As I was happily torquing all the bolts back in...SNAP...one of them broke (not the bolt itself, but the 'receptor'). All the other bolts are secure. I was wondering if it's ok to drive it (around 10 miles) to have the fix my errors? I still need to get that washer out, though, before I could even think of starting it.

So to wrap up: How can I retrieve a washer from the spark plug hole? Is it safe to drive it 10 miles without one of the bolts secure?

Help me bmw-forums, you're my only hope... ghead

Bernie

oh yeah... ghead

[El Presidente]

magnetic tipped scredriver.

[jrhaile]

no and no..

get that damn washed out. take your plugs off or something and stick a long magnetic tool down there to get it. make sure the plug is out though! and you will probably have an oil leak if you start to drive. I did when one of my bolts wasn't on properly and smoke started coming into my cabin...

[Kevin325i]

If the bolt is one of the corner bolts on the valve cover, it's not the greatest idea but you can drive it. If it's along the driver's side along that edge and not a corner you'll be ok to drive it for a little bit.

But my question is, how did you manage to break one, using a torque wrench, they only take like 80 in lbs or something like that.

[berniemac]

Originally posted by Kevin325i@Sep 28 2004, 07:32 PM
But my question is, how did you manage to break one, using a torque wrench, they only take like 80 in lbs or something like that.

[snapback]201051[/snapback]

The only torque wrench had had went up to 150 FT lbs, so I was going by newton meters on a little scale. Just took my slightly heavy hand to go a little above 10nm. I've learned to invest slightly more in a better tool than to try to save a few bucks.

How easy is it to fix the valve bolt? I may drive it to my nearby mechanic to do it for me (only a few blocks away).

The washer blocks the grip on the plug, so it's not as easy as taking the plug out with a standard tool. Again... ghead

Thank you for the responses.

Bernie

[Gator]

From your description it seems that you didn't drop the washer into the engine. You just dropped it into the well (hole) that holds the spark plug. In order to get it out use a megnatic tool. If that fails for some reason, you can try using a piece a wire with a little hook bent on the end and try to put it through the center of the washer and hook it so you can extract it from the hole. As long as you can get the spark plug boot onto the plug and the washer doesn't short out the plug, you can drive it with the washer in the well. Whatever you do, DON'T remove the plug with the washer still in the hole. Then the washer could fall into the cylinder.
Don't feel too bad, I once dropped an acorn nut that held on the air cleaner into one of the four barrell carbs on a Ferrari 275 GTB. I nearly had a heart attack, but luckily a magnetic probe saved the day,

[bitcore]

Kevin325i said 80 INCH pounds... btw

If you know of a geek or you have a dead hard drive laying around, crack that mofo open and take the two magnets out of it that controll the read-write arms. Those are neodynium magnets and are REALLY powerful.

If you can get one of those, throw it on some concrete to break it into small managebale pieces and epoxy it to a crappy screwdriver or something and wala. Instant REALLY POWERFUL magnetic probe. The magnets have to be able to move the read-write arms back in forth as fast as freaking possible, so they are really powerful, but have a small EM field, which is kinda bad for finding where somehting is, but if you can see it easially and know where it is, it's good cause the magnet can pick up some heavy\stuck stuff.