Lost bolt in the bell housing

F

flump

New member
Hi there folks,

Long time lurker here. I've really appreciated the insight that's available on this forum, but today my group of friends and I find ourselves stumped.

We have a 1930 A and recently had the oil pan down. While putting it back up, the rear oil pan bolt slipped out of my fingers and into that devilishly designed hole that leads to the bell housing. After I confirmed that I wasn't dreaming and I had actually managed to do something that stupid, we started trying to get it out.

Turning the crank by hand seemed to indicate that the teeth of the ring gear were pushing the bolt around on the bottom of the bell housing, especially since the crank would sometimes lock up and could only be unlocked by spinning the engine backwards a little bit.

We tried the magnet-on-the-ring-gear trick. Got part of a bendix... but not the bolt. Tried fishing with a magnet... nothing. Tried with grease on the ring gear... nothing. We even got a boreoscope and looked all around the bottom of the bell housing and everywhere. Nothing, and I'm pretty certain we did look everywhere, including as far back as the radius ball.

After some more manipulation of the crank, the bolt must have moved away from the ring gear and doesn't make any more noise. It looks like we will have to drop the bell housing in order to get the bolt out, but, I wanted to see if anyone had other thoughts or things we ought to try first. Anybody have any idea where the bolt might even be?

Thanks in advance.
 
I'd keep trying. Can you see all around the bottom with the scope?

Some of the grease will sling off the ring gear and onto the starter drive helix, which will keep the drive from spinning up into engagement. It gets worse in cold weather. It happened to me and I wiped off the shaft and just gave it a coat of very light oil, so it doesn't rust.
 
Yeah, we looked everywhere, and looked all around the bottom and up the sides and in all reasonable places one might expect a bolt to be with the boreoscope, finding nothing. I don't expect continuing to try to give us any useful results since we've spent many hours now reaching in from any angle, putting in magnets in various permutations, trying about four types of magnets, cursing loudly at the bell housing (that didn't work either), etc...

Thank you for the tip about the grease. We will be certain to completely clean the ring gear before we fire it back up eventually...
 
Would it help to pull the starter off and fish some more? As Tom said, keep trying. Flexible magnet and maybe an air hose with a blow tube? Try swearing just a little bit louder. You will get it.
 
yea wear a face mask and blow an air wand around - have a watcher to see if it comes rocketing out... or have a heavy duty magnet in the bellhousing and then blow air around.
 
as a last resort undue the ujoint ND let THE TORQUE TUBE fall down as far as you can make it go, unbolt bell housing and slide it back just far enough to see inside the bell housing so you can fish around with a magnet or any thing else that will pick up the bolt, ive done that on other fords but never on a model a , it should work
 
Depending on which side of the flywheel your bolt there are 3 places to fish from front of the flywheel housing , remove the starter , clutch inspection hatch on top of the bell housing try a magnet on a wire with a dob of grease
I have also used my shop vacuum cleaner with a short length of garden hose fitted with great success
 
Seem to recall a service bulletin tip of detaching radius rod ball, jacking up the front of the car high and tapping the housing with a hammer, but I guess it might be easier to follow #7 procedure, but with an A disconnect the rear brake rods and drop the back axle c/w spring which is what I've done before.
 
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I dropped one of the wishbone bolts into the housing once and tried everything for a couple hours to no avail so I unbolted the engine and hoisted it up out of the way then disconnected the bell housing and there it was, had the engine back in place and running in 2 hours so that worked out to be the best solution in my case.
 
Its amazing what one can find fishing around, but even disassembly can tell some tales. This is a four speed AA Housing and the junk found within. Look closely and you'll find the forgoten bolt shot right through the housing.
 

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I will spend more time looking for the lost bolt than it would have taken to R&R the engine. I start out thinking it will be found in seconds, which turns into minutes, which turns into hours. :eek:
Oh well, what's more fun than working on a Model A. Now, if I just had a heated garage.:D
 
Could be your magnet isn't strong enough? I used a small ceramic magnet, which really had a good pull. I forget where I bought a set of 2 or 3 of them pretty cheap. As I cranked it around slowly, I could hear the bendix bolt in my situation move over and hit the magnet.
 
I have also used one of those flexible wire cable magnets that is a about two feet long. They also have the one with the push button in the middle to open the small grabber fingers. Also a piece of vacuum hose with a wade of grease on the end might work.
But patience, patience and a little wild turkey sure wouldn't hurt. ;)
 
zzlegend said:
I have also used one of those flexible wire cable magnets that is a about two feet long. They also have the one with the push button in the middle to open the small grabber fingers. Also a piece of vacuum hose with a wade of grease on the end might work.
But patience, patience and a little wild turkey sure wouldn't hurt. ;)
Click to expand...

yea might also need a few wise men to go turkey hunting to help you;)
 
Flump ,
I may be wrong but I thought normally there isn't enough room between the flywheel housing and flywheel at the access plate/ rear main for a bolt to drop through. Washers yes. Are you sure the bolt isn't in the recessed aea of the flywheel and your actually dealing with an old broken starter bolt ?
Use an inspection mirror it put you hand in the recess and see if you can find anything

Use a strong magnet on the flywheel carefully rotating to see if it picks up
Since the engine isn't locked up you should be able to get it just be persistent

Larry s
 
If all else fails, take a long lightweight rag, twist it tightly end to end into a screw shape and feed it into the starter hole between the flywheel teeth and the bell housing while slowly turning the engine by hand. The flywheel will pull the rag and push the bolt and everything else ahead of it which can be removed from the upper access plate hole or the starter hole as the rag comes back around. This trick was suggested to me by an old mechanic pro over 50 yrs ago and worked on the first try to remove a loose Bendix bolt.

Glen
 
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