Lost bolt in the bell housing

[flump]

Folks, thank you so much for the helpful suggestions. To address a couple questions:

someone had a post awhile back about using a magnet to get the bolt, attach the magnet to the flywheel and turn it and it would capture the bolt. The source for the magnet was Home Depot

Yeah -- we used that exact magnet. Wonderful fit, and it got part of a bendix bolt back, but not the bolt I dropped.

yea wear a face mask and blow an air wand around - have a watcher to see if it comes rocketing out...

Excellent idea, we will try compressed air.

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.

Thank you for the pictures... how did the bolt shoot through the housing? Flung by the ring gear I guess?

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 ?

This is what I thought, too, so we checked the recessed area of the flywheel but couldn't find anything, with the boreoscope (camera) and magnet on a stick approach... nothing there. There's no old broken starter bolt down there; we had one fail but managed to get all its old bolts out without losing one, and before that the bell housing was off and cleaned.

I think it's possible for an oil pan bolt to fall between the housing and flywheel, but only barely.

Could a bolt wedge itself into the recessed area of the flywheel, somewhere where I couldn't see? I didn't think that was possible, but I'm not certain.

Try swearing just a little bit louder. You will get it.

I think this and the wild turkey will be what do the trick.

It may be some time before we are able to look into this further, but I will update the thread when we do (for the sake of the next poor loser who makes the same error I did).

 

[Carb Guy]

I had a bendix bolt break off. Picked up a plastic coated magnet on a cable from harbor freight. took off the starter, put the magnet thing in , fished around a little while and out came the broken off bolt. Real easy for me.