[JLMounce]

Title pretty much sums it up. While cleaning the block for a new valley pan gasket, I managed to drop a piece of fiber gasket (and a bit of etc stuck to it) into the pan. It was a pretty solid piece of gasket about 3/4” long.

It dropped in at the front wall between the #1 exhaust lobe.

I can’t see it, nor have I been able to find it with my bore scope. Tried sucking it out with my shop vac, but no luck there either.

Before I drain the pan to try and float it out, does anyone have any suggestions on how to locate and remove it?

[lust4speed]

My suggestion would be to leave it and not worry.

I've found a 1/4 pushrod, 1/2 pushrod, almost full pushrod, nuts, washers, strings of silicone, gasket material, nylon teeth off original timing gears, and stuff not even related to the engine. Everything just finds a quiet place in a corner of the pan.

[steve25]

There’s 3 things you can do, one is as posted above and just leave it which I have done with regular gasket material, but I am concerned that since it is fiberglass it will over time get kicked around and ground up putting fine grit into the motor, and you know what that will lead to!

2) drain the oil out with the both the ass end of the car jacked up a little and also the drivers side of the car jacked up some to hopefully get that crap over to the drain plug area.

Since something 3/4” is too big to pass out of the drain plug then if you do see it there grab it with a long needle nose in such a way to snap it in two and get it out.

3) pull the timing cover off and drain the oil outthru the nose of the pan, or atleast get most of the oil to the nose of the by means of jacking the ass end of the car way up and letting most of the air out of the front tires.

Hopefully is just floating on the oil in the pan and not stock somewhere such that you have to get run the motor and get the oil warm to get it free,

Next time you need to do a gasket scraping session paper towels and news paper are your friend to block and catch that crap!

[78w72]

fiberglass? aren't fiber gaskets more of a paper material? & if it gets ground up wont the filter catch it or the pump pickup screen?

[JLMounce]

Yeah this isn't fiberglass, it's a paper-like material. Pretty sure it was the gasket provided with the Tomahawk valley pan from Butler.

I should clarify it's about 3/4" long, it's not that wide since it was the front portion of the gasket. maybe 1/4" wide or so.

I appreciate the suggestions!

[steve25]

It’s Glass !
If crawling around in your fiberglass lined attic makes your skin irritated it seems it will have that same potential to the motors bearings I would have to say once it gets ground up!

[steve25]

Well if it’s only 1/4” wide it stands a good chance of flowing out with a oil change if it winds up in the right position at the drain plug.

[JLMounce]

Could be, either way I really don't want it just sitting in there. I'm going to try and float it out. even if that means capturing and refilling the pan a couple times to move it to the drain plug.

[steve25]

Thumbs up!

[78w72]

Originally Posted by steve25

It’s Glass !
If crawling around in your fiberglass lined attic makes your skin irritated it seems it will have that same potential to the motors bearings I would have to say once it gets ground up!

fibre gaskets are glass? & why wont the filter or pickup screen stop it from circulating in the engine??

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by lust4speed

My suggestion would be to leave it and not worry.

I've found a 1/4 pushrod, 1/2 pushrod, almost full pushrod, nuts, washers, strings of silicone, gasket material, nylon teeth off original timing gears, and stuff not even related to the engine. Everything just finds a quiet place in a corner of the pan.

^^^^^ This

It's not going to go through the oil pickup screen if it's of any size. Having worked in many dealerships and independent garages over 50 years as my career, no matter how careful you are, stuff like this happens, but we never stressed over it. You put the engine back together, and send it down the road never to be heard from again.

If the engine has a windage tray, it's more than likely lying on the top side of it, difficult if not impossible to retrieve without pulling the bottom off the engine. Flushing it out of the drain hole are probably slim to none.

Not sure where the fiberglass statement comes from, in all my years working on Pontiacs. I've never encountered fiberglass valley pan gaskets, cork is what the ones I've seen are made from. Paper is also a fiber, as is cloth, and I think back over the years of assembling, and repairing Pontiac engines and have zero recollection of an fiberglass gaskets in any of them.

In 1973 Pontiac started using RTV on valley pans, so before that they were cork. Most replacement gasket sets are cork too. I never even use gaskets on valley pans, only RTV for the last 48 years.

My advice if your paranoid about that gasket running through the oil pump and causing damage would be to put a by pass oil filter on it and it will filter the oil to under 5 microns. I wouldn't bother to do this if it were my own engine, but if it will make you sleep better at night spend about $200-300 for a by pass oil filter. You can't duplicate the removal of fine particulate with a conventional oil filter with 40 micron pores in the filter media of an OEM filter.

A member here wiped out a flat tappet camshaft on a brand new build, and contacted me about what to do without completely disassembling his engine after replacing the new cam and lifters. I suggested he buy a by pass oil filter after flushing the engine best he could with solvents, and fresh oil. He followed the advice, and the engine is healthy after the replacement of cam and lifters over a year now.

If it were my engine with a piece of gasket in the pan, I'd just run it, and forget it........

[Joe's Garage]

Lift the motor W-A-A-A-A-Y up and pull the pan off. Then search for and find the chunk and remove it.

Pain in the ass = YES.
Never need to worry about what might happen with it inside = YES.

As mentioned, it's probably on top of the windage tray, or stuck to the crank or a rod. Eventually, it would probably end up down in the oil - but maybe not. It could just sit up there on top of the windage tray forever.

As a side-note, many years ago (decades, actually), a good friend of mine changed out the cam on his RAIII 1970 TA. He laid an old greasy dark-colored dishtowel in over the lifters and pushrods while he scraped off the remaining gasket material and then forgot to take it out before he put the valley cover and intake back on......

That one got ugly really fast........

Note to self after that: Always clean off all the old gaskets BEFORE you start to install new stuff or even think about reassembling.

If it was mine, I'd probably flush a couple gallons of cheap, new WalMart oil over the top of the cam/lifter area with a really big drain pan underneath. Maybe even pour it through several times, from all directions and all areas of the lifter valley, to see if it would dislodge the gasket chunk and get it down and out the drain hole.

You might get lucky.

Good luck!

[b-man]

Leave well enough alone.

Button it up and call it good.

You’re worrying too much about an insignificant issue.

[JLMounce]

Sounds like the consensus is this is somewhat of a non-issue.

The car is in need of an oil change anyway so I'll hope to float this out. I've got a couple drain pans, so I'll try a couple times to flush it out. If i get it, great, if not...send it.

[Dragncar]

Future reference. When I am removing a gasket on a used, assembled engine in a sensitive spot first thing is use a sharp scraper. I make fine ones out of old chipper knives, much better than anything you can buy.
But the most important thing I do is use a powerful Shop Vac in tandem with the scraper. That way anything that could go down a port, crankcase ect ends up in the Shop Vac and not in your engine. Keep the Vac tube very close to your work as you scrape and any gasket material, dirt, gunk get sucked up.

[JLMounce]

Yup I was using a razor blade at the time and guiding the gasket off. I just slipped a bit and it also got past the shop towels I had in the valley to catch debris.

Just an unfortunate confluence of events.

[Mike Davis]

Use Diesel or Kerosene to try to flush it out. Oil cost too much.
I dropped a piece of intake gasket down mine last year. Flushed with 2 gallons of Diesel 2X and it came out.