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Tips
Tips

Dropped Bolt or Anything Small

Bayless

Yoda
Silver
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Yes. And this is a particular problem trying to restore the Model A Ford. It uses a lot of square rather than hex nuts and, of course, there should be absolutely no phillips head screws. Trying to clean or polish these things on the wire wheel they do sometimes just vanish.
 

dklawson

Yoda
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My worst experience was with the Mini. I dropped a nut which disappeared. I took the car on a test drive only to find the nut had dropped into an opening in the shift mechanism jamming it in 2nd gear. Fortunately I was close to home.

I agree the red portion of the graphic above is too big.
 

DrEntropy

Great Pumpkin
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It has been my experience:

The dropped object will find its way into the smallest or most unlikely (and most harmful) opening in whatever machine is being worked on.

The more unique the bit, the more likely it is to completely disappear.

Non-ferrous bits go into places a magnet would make a simple retrieval, ferrous bits go into convoluted channels making a magnet useless.

The chassis will catch and hide a dropped socket or other small tool before it hits the ground.
 

HealeyRick

Yoda
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The chassis will catch and hide a dropped socket or other small tool before it hits the ground.

For Healeys, that's right here:

AHY-114_1.jpg



Anything dropped while working on fender attachment, carbs, master cylinders goes right into the open space at the top, right down to the closed area at the bottom
 

Popeye

Darth Vader
Silver
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Online
Great pie chart!

My mechanic in Pittsburgh was working with his young son (many years ago). As they were finishing, he asked his son to help clean up. The boy took a handful of loose hardware and dumped it down the intake of the engine they were working on! He did clean up... My mechanic told me the next day they took the engine apart... and finished up with more specific clean up instructions!
 

HealeyRick

Yoda
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Great pie chart!

My mechanic in Pittsburgh was working with his young son (many years ago). As they were finishing, he asked his son to help clean up. The boy took a handful of loose hardware and dumped it down the intake of the engine they were working on! He did clean up... My mechanic told me the next day they took the engine apart... and finished up with more specific clean up instructions!

Up until now I thought the worst stories of junior helping Dad around the car was using a scotchbrite to "wash" it. This one may beat it.
 
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