10MM Socket in the Engine

Hey guys,
I'm a big fan of the forums and have been using them frequently for a very long time now. I always promised myself I would make my first post if something absolutely amazing happened. Well... that day has finally come and unfortunately it was not fun for me or my wallet.

During a valve cover gasket job I managed to drop a 10MM socket into the front oil passage drain. This is found under the lower camshaft at the very front of the head. After hearing that horrible sound of a object falling deep into the motor I called it a night. The next morning I used a bore scope to spot where the sockets location was. Unfortunately the front oil drain is the worst spot to drop an object, not only is the passage the perfect size to fit a 10MM socket it bends in a way that makes it impossible to "fish" the object out. After diagnosing the location of the socket I did the following steps to drop the oil pan. WARNING - (if you do something similar to this situation do not start the truck. This passage leads directly to the crankshaft and will cause severe damage to the lower rotating assembly.)

Steps for removal

1. Drain diff and engine oil
2. Remove front axles
3. Unbolt and unhook front differential from wiring harness
4. Bench press that bad boy out
5. Unhook starter wiring harness from oil pan
6. Unbolt pan and SLOWLY remove gasket


After getting the pan off I made the discovery that the previous owner never took good care of this truck. The pan had a lot of metal and gasket material in it and the oil pickup was even worse. I am the second owner of this truck and it still amazes me that someone could neglect these trucks. Please do your oil changes, currently the truck has 160,000 miles I will keep everyone updated and see if the engine life is limited due to what I have found.

Honestly the entire project didn't take that long, and could be done in less than one weekend with basic tools. I do unfortunately have to report that the oil pan gasket is weeping a little bit of oil near the back of the pan. I'm not sure if this is oil that was already on the block and leaked down onto the pan or if the gasket isn't fully sealing the pan to the block. My future advice to someone in a similar situation is to make sure the surfaces are as clean as possible. Anyways guys that's all I have for now, if anyone has any questions feel free to ask and if anyone needs more detailed instructions I can post below.





(Truck in question)



(Above is the head where the 10mm socket fell down. Under the lower camshaft is a front oil drainage)


(oil pickup with all the material that I found on it, lets see if you guys can find the socket)

 

I see it.
Hint: above the filter


BTW, I’ve taped socket to an extension just for this reason.
I really need to invest in a set of “locking” extensions.

Good job on getting it out, and getting it done

 

Good job getting it out!

It just had to be a 10mm socket of course .

That pick up tube is not that bad I have seen them so bad the engine starved for oil

 

Are you sure that's your socket? Looks a lot like the one I lost.

 

As is tradition

 

I see the socket: the sight of that pick-up screen alarms me more than the socket. If I dropped that pan for some routine maintenance on my truck (gasket r&r) and saw that debris on there I would have a coronary. It did it's job though. Don't know what happened previously, but the area is pretty clean otherwise.

Don't beat yourself up. Things like this have happened to me. (50 years as a shade-tree mechanic on my vehicles including three antiques: Trust me.) Good job! You fixed it the right way. Welcome to the forum!

 

Welcome to Tacomaworld. Those damn 10mm sockets

 

I'm definitely bummed out on how the pickup screen looked but nothing I can do about it now. The first owner of this truck did not take the best care of it and it definitely was a work truck. Ill keep everyone posted on the life span of the engine considering it definitely didn't get its oil changed very often.

 

The venerable 10mm. A blessing and a burden.

 

Big pieces are fine it is the metal small enough to get sucked through the screen.

I have never removed any oil pan that had been on any length of time that did not have junk in the pan.

Install a manual oil pressure Gauge and keep an eye on the oil pressure.

Good Luck!

 

If it was extremely neglected, (10,000+ mile oil change intervals) I would expect to see sludge everywhere including the pan and pick-up. I don't know what the view is like down the oil fill on your engine, but on mine you can see a good snap-shot of the head. (4.0L 1GR-FE) It was the first thing I checked when I looked at it (104K used). Just a slight golden haze showing: no sludge: good sign that it at least received +- 5,000 mile oil changes. Take a look at yours: it will tell you a lot.

 

So maybe a blessing in disguise, now you know oil pickup tube is nice and clean.

 

One time I lost a straw from a carb cleaner bottle. I thought it went in the throttle body I was cleaning, but I never found it. It bugged me for 150k miles until i sold the truck. Glad you found it.