Epic valve cover gasket replacement failure $!#@

[hour]

#%$!

So I finished up the passenger side gasket/cam plug/half moon replacement, easy-ish, and decided to tackle the drivers side.

Negotiating the driver side off was a little more difficult, and something pretty stupid happened. My latex glove grabbed the plastic wire bundle cover pictured (borrowed photo, mine ran the whole length). It tore my glove, but since I was actively lifting the valve cover off I didn't really notice until *crack*

A big portion of that stupid plastic shattered, brittle from heat and age I guess. A few big pieces fell off, but a LOT of smaller pieces also fell. I suspected some fell beside the camshafts and around there, and once the valve cover was off my suspicion was confirmed.

Used a parts grabber to get a bunch, but some are inevitably below the cam shafts where I can't see nor get to, and I'm guessing some fell down further in to the abyss.

TL;DR - plastic shattered, fell in motor.

What would you do?

Edit: guess I'm not the only one. I'm probably going to leave it :| I'm at 250k and would hate for this to kill the motor, but I honestly don't want to screw around with dropping the pan, which in the linked thread seems to be uncertain still.

 

[satek]

That was me!

Ya, so I dropped about a 1 inch x .5 inch triangle into my engine and its still running strong after ~15k miles!

It's probably melted by now, hehe. As long as you didn't drop like 20 pieces in there, I think you're fine!

 

[hour]

Hah thanks for the response, and for posting your original thread. I'm not sure how many remain, I pulled like 5 pieces out but there was one definite one maybe a 3/8", triangular, that I couldn't grab due to space, and ended up moving it to an unknown location.

Glad to hear you're still up and running 15k later, I hope I'm this lucky as well.

 

[allwheeldrive]

I'm pretty sure there's some in mine also, that was about 30k ago. No issues

 

[sterbenlicht]

Those plastic things are the worst part of valve cover jobs on these things. I remember when the same thing happened to me on a customer's car. I had to face the fact that I couldn't get one or two small pieces that fell down out of sight too. I think you'll be fine.

 

[snivilous]

I just did my valve covers the other day and just ripped that piece apart on the passenger side before taking the cover off since it was so annoying and I couldn't pry it open.

 

[jzme]

Same thing happened when I did the valve cover gaskets on my aristo. Still runs fine.

 

[Troybylt]

I just did my valve covers the other day and just ripped that piece apart on the passenger side before taking the cover off since it was so annoying and I couldn't pry it open.

That's what I did, saw it was completely brittle (Read cracked the **** out of them) when I was tearing down so I just broke it completely to pieces and brushed it all away before it went anywhere it shouldn't have. Ended up zip tieing the wires to (if I recall correctly) the fuel rail to keep them from touching anything hot as the plastic races had done.

As for OP, I really wouldn't worry about it, either it will melt and come out with your bad oil or it will end up being bashed to tiny pieces by the cams or in something and the particulate will get caught in you oil filter. I really can't see it harming anything. if you're that worried though, do a few short interval oil and filter changes, but ultimately it's plastic in a metal box it ain't gonna hurt nothin'.