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lost a screw below the balancer shaft... like a boss

T

The Gut

New member
Hey everybody, I'm new to the forum lol. I have a 2000 Grand Prix GT, and being the clever individual that I am i decided to put a tiny screw in one of those half inch holes under both ends of the balancer shaft. Since the screw is now keeping the cam company, i thought this might be the right section to post a thread. I've spent about 4 hours of quality time with my car and a tiny magnet on a stick, and the screw is still in there. Shop says 1000+ most likely, so I was hoping someone might know how i could un-screw myself?
 


how small of a bolt? good chance it hit the oil pan. so if you got a flexable magnet thingy, drain the oil, try fishing from the drain hole in the pan.

if it did hit the pan, like it should have, it cant do any damage laying down there.
 
I was thinking a strong magnet on the outside of oil pan, but it's aluminum? Dang, that's a pickle you are in. Perhaps drop the oil pan and take a look? Maybe even the drain plug is magnetic?
 
Scottydoggs said:
how small of a bolt? good chance it hit the oil pan. so if you got a flexable magnet thingy, drain the oil, try fishing from the drain hole in the pan.

if it did hit the pan, like it should have, it cant do any damage laying down there.
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its one of the screws that connects the coolant hose to the alternator bracket. so below the cam is the oil pan?
 
Below the cam is the rods/ crankshaft, bearing caps, oil pickup, and then eventually the pan. If you are lucky, and it's smaller than the drain plug you can fish it out. Maybe use an old car speaker magnet, and drag it across the oilpan, towards the drain hole, in conjunction with any other method.
 
strong magnet on the pan seems like a good idea.

theres not much it could hang up on. id take a socket to the crank bolt on the balancer, and turn the engine back and fourth, just to make sure its not laying somewhere bad.

maybe mark the balancer and turn the engine one full revolution via the crank bolt and a socket wrench just to be safe. if it turns freely fire it up. (taking the plugs out will let the engine turn much easier by hand)
 


Scottydoggs said:
strong magnet on the pan seems like a good idea.

theres not much it could hang up on. id take a socket to the crank bolt on the balancer, and turn the engine back and fourth, just to make sure its not laying somewhere bad.

maybe mark the balancer and turn the engine one full revolution via the crank bolt and a socket wrench just to be safe. if it turns freely fire it up. (taking the plugs out will let the engine turn much easier by hand)
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sounds like a damn good idea. lol crank bolt is under the crankshaft pulley isnt it?
 
thanks everybody. sounds like magnets the way to go, ill take a shot at it first thing in the morning and let you all know how it goes. lol if magnet across the oil pan doesnt work, ill drop the pan and try to find a hole to stick my magnet in. I've never gone very far into an engine before lol, had no idea the cam was semi-accessible from the bottom.
 
if you dont find it, id not loose any sleep over it. its just gonna lay in the pan. no way it can be sucked up into the oil pick or anything either.
 
chances are its either on top of the rods/crank or its in the pan.

get a piece of heavy copper wire and bend the end over a small chunk of magnet (epoxy if worried) to fish through drain hole.

if its on top of the crank, carefully rotate the crank and listen for the tink (hopefully the oil is drained so youll hear it)

once you hear it hit the pan...fuhghedaboudit it'll stay there till the cows come home
 


Hey everyone. Absolutely no luck with the magnet, used an old 9 pound subwoofer magnet on the outside of pan and a little guy on a wire through drain hole. also spun the engine round and round and round manually. Scotty and Turbo, when you guys say dont worry bout it if i cant find it, is that only if i hear it hit the pan? because i definitely didnt hear anything...if not any other ideas? lol i was going to just drop the pan, but looks like that involves lifting the engine? whats worse case scenario if i cross my fingers and crank it? thanks again guys, i really appreciate the help so far.
 
car ran without any apparent issues with the screw in there....only got to test it for about 12 hours before i blew something. thinking a head gasket lol. but at least the screw wasnt a problem!
 


Yea, I doubt a HG let go unless you were messing w/ the heads, they rarely go on these motors, even if overheated. Depending on where the coolant was coming from it could be the LIM gasket, the upper intake cracked internally and hydrolocked the motor, or you blew a plastic coolant elbow.
 
the little plastic hose that connects to the pressure sensor on the passenger side of the upper intake manifold was loose inside the manifold, though i have no idea what that does. the LIM gasket itself looks (to my untrained eye) to be perfectly fine. theres a **** load of oil in the exhaust (does that ruin the new high flow cat?). lol i just pulled off the front head like an hour ago thinking it was the head gasket but now im reading this and wondering if that was a waste of time and money? there is coolant in the front pistons, though not very much. when i drained oil and coolant they dont appear to have mixed. lol i wouldnt be able to tell a blown HG from blown LIM gasket if they both bit me in the ass so is there any easy way to check? and am i supposed to start a new thread or can i keep asking in this one? thanks again in advance...
 
oh and i replaced the coolant elbows with the aluminum ones when i did the LIM last week....not sure if its relevant but i had an oops moment and forgot to clamp down the lower heater hose where it goes into the alt bracket, was hilarious when i started it but i did clamp it down immediately. the signs that made me think blown head gasket was billowing white smoke from exhaust whenever i started the car, got even worse when i tried to drive it. lol smoked out the whole parking lot in about a minute. thats why i thought blown HG...
 
Pressure sensor? No such thing. Not sure what you're talking about on that one.

A cracked upper intake will do that as well, since it's feeding coolant to the cylinders. They usually crack around where the small egr pipe comes up from the lower intake manifold. There is a replacement manifold and egr pipe out there for this issue. I installed it on my 00GT and so far so good, and that was years ago.

You're going to have to replace those head bolts as they are TTY bolts and not reuseable. Will probably have to rent a degreeing torque wrench when you go to put it back on as well so as to get the proper torque specs on those bolts. Might be another way, but I've never messed with pulling the heads on these motors, just read on it.
 
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