MTFCA Forum

After 40+ lucky years, I lost a band washer while removing.

A week ago last Sunday. Tink, slide, bloop. Its gone. Many swear words, throw a wrench, more swear words, resignation and walk of shame.
Never happened before, what do I do? Think a bit. Form a plan!

This is a fresh motor, well sealed, already installed completely. Ready to run. What a pain. I AM NOT PULLING THE HOGS HEAD!
What am I in for?? So I grabbed a 4th main & trans output plate. Held it in an old pan. Wow, there is tons of room under the drums & the center pan valley. Should be an easy path to that washer. I don need to pull the hogs head. What i need is a flex tool with a magnet. I dont have one. I put the job on hold & research a tool(s) for the job. Not gonna pull the cover! A trip to harbour freight & ebay. By friday I have 4 tools in hand. I drain the oil for tomorrows hunt.

Sat. a.m. This is going to be easy.
I snake my magnet tool around. Nothing. Look up thru the drain hole. I can see the ring gear & magnets. No washer.
Pick around with a wire. Nothing. Where could it be? Did I really drop it? Thinking about this issue from previous posts. I dont want to pull the cover. Couldnt have gotten to the magnets? Better check. Had my assistant, Vana, slowly turn the crank. I can see every side of the magnets. Not there. More magnet fishing. Hour later, nothing. Dont want to pull the cover.
Need advise. Call my Montana neighbor buddy. (He has more experience in these matters) He has a camera. Its not available till possibly tomorrow. I get quizzed. Suggested checking the sump.
Back to it. Its not hiding in the sump. So I remove the bands for side access with the magnet & in case I have to pull the cover any way.
More fishing. Nothing. There is not enough room between the flywheel & rear of the pan to get the magnet to. Alright, the rag trick.
I stuff & feed a T shirt into the flywheel while Vana turns.(wheels up, in gear). Cant get the rag deep enough to the outer edge of the flywheel. Dont want to pull the cover. Try again with a deeper stuff. Nothing. Have Vana turn the crank to get the tripple gears in a better position. NOISE!
Sounds like a playing card in a bicycle wheel. STOP!
Go back under to the drain hole. NOOO? I see it. Centered & jammed under the ring gear. Get a 90 degree pick on it, unjam it & pull it through the slot into the sump.
Call my buddy. Heard I can leave it in the sump? My choice? Or i can fish it back up thru the cover door. Alright, do it right.
I wrapped one end of some tie wire securely to the washer. Fished the other end to Vana. Back up top, easy, pull, GOT IT.
Put the bands back in, adjusted & done.

Only took 4 hours. AND I DIDNT HAVE TO PULL THE HOGS HEAD!!
I may be more careful next time.

I'm happy that you had good luck. Some may remember I ended up pulling an engine to get the washer out last year. Your persistence paid off.
Rich

Glad that worked for you, and 4 hours is not a bad time for all that work. I have heard much worse horror stories about those pesky little washers!

Been there, done that, band nut on my '27 touring.
Removed the bendix and caught it on a flywheel magnet after fishing for 4 hours with no luck. Now I stuff the ENTIRE transmission with rags when changing bands.

Congratulations on your catch.

Did that once about 34 years ago on my '23. Not knowing any better, I ran it for a year with the washer in there. Then I took off the inspection door to adjust the bands, and there it was, sitting pretty as a picture on top of one of the band springs.

One of his best...

Dan Haynes wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 7:44 pm

One of his best...
Scrudd.jpg

How did you get my picture?

John-
You didn't use dental floss, did you?
: ^ (

KWTownsend wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 8:41 pm

John-
You didn't use dental floss, did you?
: ^ (

dental floss.jpg

I was removing. You cant use floss can you to remove?

John-
Before you put the washer and nut on...

Get two lengths of dental floss.
Tie a loop in each end of each length.
With one length, at one end, loop it through the nut (the way you would tie rubber bands together)
With the other length, loop it through the washer, the same way.
Now put a finger through the open end of each loop of each piece of dental floss and put the washer and nut on in the usual manner.
Now when you drop the nut or washer, you already have a safety line and you can just pull it back up.

The dental floss is this enough so you can put the nut on the threads no problem.

: ^ )

What a enthralling story. It had me mesmerised till the last word!
Don’t pull the Pigs Head!! Love it and the correct way to go!
Alan in Western Australia

I’m glad I’m not the only one. I just finished up a transmission fishing expedition, myself. I recently installed new band linings and replaced the dried out, 35 year old cork gaskets. Everything was all sealed up and leak free. The kevlar bands were finally seated, but I wasn’t happy with the pedal return, so I ordered the longer band springs (have you noticed how strong those springs are?). Dental floss through the nut, prying against the band ears to hold compression on the spring to start the nut, I get a couple threads started (or so I thought) and grab my wrench. Then, disaster. My prybar slips, spring flies open, knocking the nut off, dental floss breaks and the wrench gets knocked out of my hand. The nut goes down through the front and the wrench goes down by the tail shaft. After a couple hours of fishing, I was able to get the nut worked down to the sump, fish some safety wire through it and retrieve it through the oil pan inspection plate (oh well, I needed to replace that gasket anyway). Now onto the wrench. It went down by the tail shaft, it should come back out that way, right? I grab my (not-so) flexible (not-very-strong) magnetic grabber and go to work. Working from near the clutch spring, I manage to snake it down into the sump and I can hear the wrench sliding up the pan. It just makes it to the end of the drums, and back down it goes. After a couple hours, I come to the grim realization that this isn’t going to work and resign myself to pulling the hogshead again. Get everything disassembled and the magnet does its job and the wrench is out on the first try.

Moral of the story: dental floss isn’t enough. Pack that sucker tight with rags. Fill every nook and cranny. You may never have dropped anything in there before, but there’s a first time for everything, and small objects find their way to the bottom a lot easier than they find their way out. I guess everything is a learning experience and if you can’t laugh at your own bone-headed mistakes, you’ll probably just cry out of frustration.

This happen to me 5 years ago, just as I was finishing an engine rebuild. Dropped the washer into bottom of the pan. Couldn't fish it out, so I tipped the engine up and the washer fell out of the drive shaft opening. I was lucky the engine was still out of the car.
Art Mirtes

Story goes like this: one of our local Carbon Club members installing new linings in one of his T's - don't recall which one but you all know what happened - there went a nut down into the abyss ! After "fishing for hours, he decided to just sling some rigging (he's a contractor), walked his excavator over to the T and proceeded to hoist the car, while rolling it upside down - "ding-ding" out came the nut !

John, happens to the best of us, Just Ask Garrett and Me!! Great story!! Glad you had sweet success.
Steve, That would have been a Kodak moment to see...

Great story! I know I don't wanna pull the hogshead on mine either so rags & floss it is when band change time comes around.

Paul

Obviously, this was an unrestored T - I'm a charter member of the Carbon Canyon "Unrestored" Model T Club - most of us couldn't afford a restored T many years ago & some of us had original & unrestored T's - it's a FUN club !