[Shotimes] BREAKING NEWS: Jumping bolt incites fishing trip

[Mike Bruce]

The short: Cam cap screws will fit through the tapped hole in the oil
pan for the oil level sender.

How did I find that out?

Well, while removing cams from my car this weekend, one of the screws
holding down the front intake cam, leapt from its hole and entered the
forbidden hole of mystery (oil passage to the pan).  It wouldn't seem so
unlikely to happen except that the oil return was on the driver's side,
and the screw came from as far away as possible and hit the hole,
nuthin' but net.  It caught me completely by surprise since I didn't
even know that hole existed.  I did know about the one on the other end
of the head and had a screwdriver blocking the hole.

I tried retrieving the screw by dropping a magnet on a rod down the
hole.  I picked the screw up a few times, but it never held on.  I
figured that if the screw had landed on the bottom of the pan it
couldn't cause any damage, but I did not want to take a chance on the
screw being perched on the stud girdle or crank.  After draining the oil
in hopes of pulling the screw through the drain hole and finding that
the hole is just barely too small, I was prepared to drop the pan and
root around until I found it.  That brings me to tonight.

Tonight was to be the night to drop the pan and retrieving the screw.
Before I even went under the car, I knew I was in for a treat.  If
you've been under the car long enough to look at the routing of the
exhaust, you know that you must drop the y-pipe to remove the oil pan.
That would be a problem for me since I have my Y welded to a flex pipe,
which is welded to the rest of the cat-back.   I was unable to drop the
system out of the car as a whole, mostly because I didn't feel like
doing any more work on the car tonight.  So, on a hunch, I thought that
if the screw was on the bottom of the pan, I might be able to get to it
without ruining a well sealed exhaust system.  The oil level sending
unit, yeah, that just might work.  Well, that was it.  As soon as I got
a magnet into the pan, I heard a 'clink' as the screw contacted the
magnet.  I was pretty psyched at that moment, and within a minute of
trying, I had the screw in my hand.  Ahhh.  There's a happy ending.

That screw can stay right along side of the stripped-headed screw that
held the rear timing chain upper cover, and the twisted remains of the
cover.  Ya know, cam swaps can be very interesting projects.  I can't
wait to swap the stockers back in as emission test time. 

Mike "greazy arms" Bruce