dowel down the crankcase

I may have lost a camshaft dowel down the crankcase. I'm not sure, but I can't find it anywhere and there was a just enough space around the rag I had stuffed in there that it could have fallen through. Should I just shoot myself now or is there another option? I did try sticking a magnet down there and came up with nothing. I'm not sure it fell, just being cautious.

Lesson learned, when frustrated take it slow anyway.

Drop the oil pan.

Is that it? Looking online and people are talking about taking all kinds of stuff apart but haven't seen anything specific to KZs.

Maybe I'll live.

This is why I only do motor work indoors in my shop, where it's clean and well-lit.

What're you doing to the motor, anyway?

Nothing fancy, just adjusting valves and trying to fix an oil leak.

Yeah, indoors and light sounds nice.

you really need to find that dowel, torch and magnetic probe tool to start, drop oil pan next.

Hopefully you dropped through one of the inner cylinder holes and it will probably fall through into the oil pan, either way you need to find it otherwise it could make a mess of your engine and you.

Praise Jesus I found the dowel!!! It hadn't even fallen in!!

What's the purpose of those things anyway? It seems like they are almost designed to come out of their holes when you pick up the cam caps and fall into crevices.

Zaddict wrote: What's the purpose of those things anyway?

Indexing, to make sure everything lines up precisely.

I dropped a c-clip down the center hole. I had a telescopic magnet and stuck it down the center to oil pan and moved it around. When I pulled it out, the c-clip was on the end......sweet!

I dropped one of the dowels from the top idler down there and just left it there and made my own dowel out of a piece of thin wall tubing. Finally had oil leaks from the three orings between the pan and case so removed the pan and the dowel was sitting there, so I retired my home made piece after 100,000 miles or so.