gasket fell down in lowing timing case
 

so i was changing my timing chain case gaskets and one of them slipped and fell down in there. i've removed the top half and still can't see where it is and tried fishing it out. i know this is probably a stupid question but should i positively get it out? i was able to see it before but while trying to fish it out it only dropped further down there. it may be stuck or something somewhere or at the very bottom and really am not wanting to taking the whole bottom cover , especially with the vibration dampener removal which i would have to take the whole front end off for that. would leaving it potentially down in there be a foolish idea?

the part that fell is #16 on the right.
http://realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?...85&hg=11&fg=10

it fell down the right side here
http://www.318ti.org/forum/showpost....10&postcount=2

yep, you're screwed.

damnit. i've been on extreme edge with selling my car after all this. between the coolant failures and having to replace a lot, the head replacement, and this bad luck, i can't take it anymore. so for anyone who reads this post i'm considering it in the very near future. just dont know what i could get for it. besides that little piece this is perfect now after replacing a lot, just i'm sick of having to go through major projects like this haha.

I used to work on F-14D Tomcats. We used to stuff rags in every crevice around our work area for this very reason. If you drop a nut, bolt, washer, rivet, wire, anything at all, the plane couldn't fly until you retrieved it. Sometimes you'd drop a socket or something and it would fall into a void or crevice and you're trained to listen to it until it stops, so you can at least have an idea where to look for it. I mean on a jet, you might drop something, hear it bounce off of a few things, fall two or three feet down into the jet, then roll 5 or 6 feet before coming to a rest underneath a flight control or some obstruction. We're talking hours and hours of searching with magnets, inspection mirrors and flashlights for a 2mm set screw or a tiny aluminum washer.

wow that is really crazy. i suppose this is my next project either way. thanks from jess's hotline

Awww man, that's half the fun of owning a ti, lol. Seriously though, you've done the hard part. Now with a new cooling system and a fresh head gasket, you should be good to go for a while now. Maybe a suspension/brake refresh later down the road, but everything else is small potatos from here on out. Keep it man, you're one of the few that actually cared enough to fix it. Many people would've junked it or parted it out. And yours is really nice. I'd hate to see some DB get their grubby little hands on it and rice it out.

yeah im having a friend help me whos a mechanic and paying him well to do it, taking him to lunch, etc haha. i could never sell it but thinkin about how much i hate it sometimes feel good to say that ;P you know what i mean!

Do you have one of these tools? Saved my butt a few times with bolts falling into odd places.

http://www.amazon.com/OEM-25291-Four...1603887&sr=1-1

yeah i do but nothing fits through the small space :(
its hard enough to see further than a few inches till the angles of things move around

Dave those things work awesome. We call them "Mechanical fingers". Used them on the jets all the time.

Spaz, if you could see it, try caking a bunch of bearing or axle grease on the tip of a flathead screwdriver. The gasket should stick to the grease, have a pair of long bladed needlenose pliers or a pair of surgical forceps ready to grab it when you reach the opening. Or, how about a wire coat hanger with a tiny hook bent on the end of it?

I tried to hook bent with wiring. my back enjoyed that one for awhile. im going to try the grabber things again one more time. i always have this little bit of hope left in me

Mechanical fingers, long surgical foreceps, telescoping magnets- all ridiculously indispensable. :smile:

Yeah, you definitely want to find that before turning over the motor... hopefully it's easier to locate than you think it is.

well, it was easier. then went to try a few things to get it and it only dropped further and further until out of sight.

piece of welding rod with a hook on the end...

Dave

Is it a metal lined gasket? You could use a magnet retrieval tool. I would not want it to get into the timing chain if its metal. If its a paper gasket ide leave it, it will get tore up eventually by the timing chain.