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What do you do if a piece of broken wrench falls into your engine? (Photo)

6K views 32 replies 20 participants last post by  JoeWras 
#1 ·
Could happen to you too someday. Hopefully reading this post will make you wiser and take precautions…

Note: This is a Honda C35 engine, the precursor to the J35 engines on our Odysseys, so this engine is on my Acura RL not my Odyssey. However the same issue could happen (or has probably happened) on an Odyssey J30 engine, hence its relevance to Odyssey owners.
Is there a way to get the broken wrench fragment out of the engine?

Cronicle of the tragedy:

Started out replacing valve cover rubber seal that was very slowly leaking oil onto exhaust...
...In the process I noticed I had to replace the post shown by the yellow arrow because the nut threads had stripped and the cover bolt would not torque properly…
Used a crow foot wrench (see photo insert) to remove the post. Crow foot wrench broke and piece fell in the hole shown by the orange arrow. …. Yes, I know…
That hole is pretty deep, about 10".
Should I start looking for a replacement car? Or is there a way to remedy this?
The vehicle has 250k miles but still runs well.


So some of my questions are:
Q1. Where does that hole lead to? The crankshaft? And what does that hole do?
  • I put a small dowel in the hole to measure its depth and it went down 10" before it hit something. Is it the crankshaft it's hitting?
Q2. Is there a way to get the wrench fragment out?
  • I could get a borescope camera to help out.
  • The wrench fragment is magnetic while most of the engine is not. That is an advantage as I could perhaps use a magnet attached to the camera.
  • If the wrench fragment ended up in the crankshaft I could conceivably retrieve it by removing the oil pan (somewhat complicated because I have to remove wheel axle but will do it if it's the only option)

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#2 ·
Magnet on a flexible rod should get it. I'd try that first.

Great explanation and good pic. Thanks.

BTW, as far as solving the primary problem here, upon finding the post as being immovable, I would do a partial retreat and re-tap that stud with a slightly smaller thread. SAE / metric, whatever it takes that is as big as possible and will get you decent threads for the nut to screw into. Torque levels for those valve cover gaskets are generally pretty tiny.
 
#12 · (Edited)
You might try turning the engine over by hand if you can't see the broken part or fish it out. If it is resting on the crankshaft or something else it might drop into the pan. And - if you have one of those new and powerful rare earth magnets, you might feel it through the oil pan and move it to where you can get with a magnet. Remember, there's an oil pickup in there somewhere, and it may be magnetic. (An old computer hard drive will have a powerful magnet inside, and K&N Magnetics sells these as well).

Once I dropped a hypodermic needle inside a cylinder on a diesel engine (trying to preserve it with Marvel Oil) and I got it out with a magnet through the injector hole. So with a little luck - you should be able to get out the broken piece of wrench.
 
#4 ·
Try this type of tool if its a straight path down:


Try this if there's a curve:


Harbor Freight should have the first type of tool, probably not the flexible second type. Harbor Freight does have a flexible grabber tool though. It has claws that close like from that scene when Aah-nold had to pull that thing out of his schnoz in Total Recall. You'd probably need a camera/scope in tandom with that type of tool though.
 
#9 ·
I leaned the same lesson a long time ago working on my 2 stroke dirt bikes. Of course, with those you have the luxury of turning it upside down. Still, it only took once. Now rags or paper towels get stuffed in every possible black hole lol
 
#10 ·
Not sure if you can do it with a magnet. You could try using a device with a claw at the end. I have something similar to the one in the following link--it has 3 different attachments that go on the end of a flexible shaft, a magnet, a light, and a claw. claw pick up tool . It would be good to use a borescope to help the retrieval procedure.

Let us know how things go.
 
#13 ·
Thank you all for the suggestions.

While looking at the tools you all suggested I also found this one which comes with a magnet:

https://www.amazon.com/Endoscope-In...ywords=borescope+magnet&qid=1568504687&sr=8-5

I don't need a strong magnet, the broken wrench fragment probably weighs less than 1/2 ounce.
So, I ordered the endoscope camera. Seems like a good thing to have anyway. Should arrive next week. Until then I will not disturb anything just in case the piece is still precariously hanging somewhere accessible.
...Now watch, with my luck, I'm going to get the magnet stuck on the crankshaft…

In looking at engine diagram the fragment may be sitting on top of that baffle plate labelled #5 on the parts diagram. The baffle plate sits between the crankshaft and the oil pan.
Note: If you are reading this thread in the future, this is NOT an Odyssey engine, it's a Honda C35A engine, the precursor to the J35 engines in our Odysseys.

?? I still don't know where that hole ends up, but judging from the fact that it is at least 10" deep straight down it likely ends up in the crankcase ??

One suggestion I got is that the broken wrench fragment may end up on the bottom of the oil pan and never give me any problems…
Riverman, thanks for the suggestion. Indeed, if the fragment ends up at the bottom of the oil pan I can probably direct it towards the oil drain hole with a strong external magnet. Or fish it out with the endoscope through the oil drain hole.
But first let me get the endoscope and look down the hole, without disturbing anything else…

Looking at shop manual removing oil pan on this engine is a big job (I'd have to remove not only the axles -- axle goes through the oil pan -- but also three engine mounts which means I'd have to support engine from the top since I cannot put jack under oil pan. I don't have an engine hoist).

Thanks oldskewel. As far as removing the valve cover metal stud I bought a long 10mm socket wrench that fits. Should have done that in the first place, but I thought I'd try the crow foot first without applying much torque.
I did not mention it but, when I tried to undo the stud using the crow foot wrench I actually used a torque wrench set to just 12 lbft -- exactly because I figured the crow foot wrench could not take much torque. But it broke with less than 12 lbft! Harbor Freights wrench. I imagine that is why decent crow foot wrenches tend to be expensive.
Retapping the stud to a smaller diameter may work too since indeed the required nut torque is only 8.7lbft.

Stay tuned. This may be a long story…
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#14 ·
I still don't know where that hole ends up, but judging from the fact that it is at least 10" deep straight down it likely ends up in the crankcase ??
That's a vent hole from the head down to the crankcase, you are correct. If it was on the 'lower' side of the head, it would be an oil drain hole. The hole allows blow-by gasses from the cylinder to work their way up to the head and out the crankcase vent system. My guess is that the wrench piece is either on the windage tray or down in the pan by now. If you don't get the wrench piece out, make sure to rotate the engine by had to make sure it isn't wedged somewhere it shouldn't be...

BTW, the drivetrain on that car is crazy. FWD, longitudinally mounted engine with the transmission behind it (under the center console) - but with no rear output. The final drive is at the front of the transmission and the front diff mounts on the side of the oil pan... it is the front half of the style of front drive a bunch of RWD-based AWD vehicles use (Mercedes, BWM, Toyota and Nissan all have designs like it, but with rear drive outputs).

-Charlie
 
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#20 ·
Got the camera. The broken wrench fragment is still sitting at the bottom of the vent hole. I think it is sitting on top of the baffle plate(?) or the side of the engine block(?) or oil pan(?), as seen on the photo below.

Following is the whole video going down the vent using the camera on the link I posted above. You can see the fragment at the bottom of the vent on the right side of the video.
Video of borescope camera going down vent

The camera has a magnet attachment. I will try to pull it out this evening.
For now I'm just thinking about it. I don't want to hurry and do something I'll regret. If the fragment drops again as I try to pull it up and falls sideways then it may actually make it under that slit shown in photo.
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#21 ·
Wow. Really cool video.
Another issue you'll need to figure out is how to reach to the right once you're at the bottom, to get the piece.
I would guess that the magnet included in the scope is much weaker than something whose only job is to be a magnet.
Maybe send down a magnet tool (e.g., with a flexible shaft and a strong small magnet on the end), followed by the scope, maybe the two of them taped together. So you'll be able to see the magnet capture the object and you will have youtube gold! Will be able to buy a new Odyssey with the youtube ad revenues.
 
#22 ·
SUCCESS !! I got the broken wrench fragment out.

I used the magnet attachment on the camera. Apparently it's a neodymium magnet because it is pretty strong.

The magnet was able to lift about 2.5 oz of the wrench material (I tried it) and the fragment was only 0.1 oz so I had a good ratio. Yet I was concerned that the fragment may get caught in the tube offsets coming out and fall back in. So I put some tape around the magnet to prevent that. I don't know if it helped but the piece came out. I also bent the magnet holding attachement a bit to get it to position sideways down the vent hole. See photo below.
It helped a lot that there was not anything magnetic down the vent hole. I did a trial run before the final attempt to make sure there was nothing that would pull strongly on the magnet.

Here is the video where the wrench fragment got picked up. Unfortunately you cannot see the fragment being picked because it is behind the magnet. But I felt it when the fragment was picked up. A little click vibration propagated up the camera cable so I knew that I had caught something. So I lifted the camera up slowly and carefully and was happy to see the fragment attached to the end.

Broken wrench fragment is picked up by magnet

Thanks everyone for your help. I have a new sense appreciation for all the participants in this forum!

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#23 ·
Round of applause, well done, thanks for the intrigue and the reality tv type entertainment.

You've had a lot of us on the edge of our seats, congratulations and well done!
 
#26 ·
Actually... there's a related irony. When I was considering dropping the oil pan, on this car, I would have had to remove the axles (Honda has the axle go though the oil pan on this engine) plus another three (yes, three!) engine mounts. Which meant that I would have had to support the engine from above, and not having a hoist... the cheapest option would have been an engine support bar... from Harbor Freights.

BTW I'm not sure the wrench fragment would have finally made it to the oil pan. Probably, or could have gotten caught along some slit or hole on the baffle plate. maybe in the pan after some driving.
 
#29 · (Edited)
This is an interesting thread. I don't have an issue like the OP's, but would like a recommendation on a good borescope that can inspect the combustion area via the plug holes.

There are many in the market, and you can't trust the reviews on Amazon or eBay. Would like some solid feedback from actual uses on this forum.

Many thanks in advance!
 
#30 ·
This is an interesting thread. I don't have an issue like the OP's, but would like a recommendation on a good borescope that can inspect the combustion area via the plug holes.

There are many on the market, and you can't trust the reviews on Amazon or eBay. Would like some solid feedback from actual uses on this forum.

Many thanks in advance!
This has been a very interesting thread for me. The OP's caution is notable.

I bought an H-F borescope camera maybe 7 years ago. It was hard to use and see with. The picture quality was washed out and almost useless, focus range was limited.

I replaced it with this one: (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BL38C165/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) from Amazon and it far better than the H-F camera. I find its picture quality to be quite usable, but I have never had access to professional a professional quality borescope.

Reading Amazon reviews is like reading posts on forums or looking for solid info on YouTube. My experience with OdyClub is excellent, the exception. With care and intuition Amazon reviews can be useful, but many comments seem to be casual opinions without insight or supporting factual information.
 
#32 ·
Like others said...magnet on a stick. And some luck.

I used one to get a nut out of an engine. It's been so long can't remember specifics but I remember my heart dropping to the floor when the nut fell bounced around and disappeared. My magnet on a stiff bendable wire saved my arse that day.
 
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