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Dropped a piece (8") of plastic tubing down the oil filter housing while changing my oil. What can I do without pulling the whole damn thing apart? Can It be fished out from drain plug removal or what does anyone have for information to help.
2005 Mercedes Benz C55 AMG..1967 Lotus Europa..1987 Lotus Turbo Esprit HCI..2020 Mercedes Benz E350
Super.....
Suggest using a coat hanger, cut off one end and bend a hook at the end. Find another piece of that plastic tubing and verify that your hook will feed into and thru the dropped tube. Then thread hanger into the oil housing and thru the dropped tube and, hopefully, you'll be able to hook it and retrieve that piece out. If not, you'll have to remove the oil pan.
Another option is to buy a pick-up tool (see attached photo) from Amazon and work some magic.
There’s the front cover and how it goes into the crankcase. It is about a 1/2” hole that pretty much takes a 90 degree turn inside the front cover. Don’t think a tube will fall all of the way through.
Put my cam down to see what I could see. Looks like it went down next to the pump gear that transfers oil to back of pan. This has a drain plug for both front and back portions of pan so what are the odds of a little grapple action?! Not getting my hopes up but I'm a little more encouraged than when I took uber home at 3:30am this morning!
Put my cam down to see what I could see. Looks like it went down next to the pump gear that transfers oil to back of pan. This has a drain plug for both front and back portions of pan so what are the odds of a little grapple action?! Not getting my hopes up but I'm a little more encouraged than when I took uber home at 3:30am this morning!
Foreign object removed from engine oil pan without removing anything but drain plug
Pulled an all nighter but success!! I have a snap-on bk6500 that I used to find the 8" piece of plastic tubing that was near the thing gear and chain. It didn't drop all the way to the bottom of the pan which made it difficult to get the cheap $3.00 grabber I bought as my expensive magnetic led lit ones wouldn't fit to gain access. I did have to grind the grabber to slim it up so it would fit through the drain hole with my camera. At first I had it all taped together with very small amounts of tape as too much wouldn't allow it to fit but in the long run the oil just made it all come apart and I ended up just bending the grabber however I could to follow the path of my camera as I was operating both separately at the same time. Eventually when the grabber came into view of the tubing, I was able to finally get a hold of it and after a few attempts pull it to the drain hole where I then used a hook pick and while it wouldn't just pull straight through, I started twisting it and came out rather easily at that point. I was dreading the thought of having to pull the pan or anything else for that matter but luckily that scenario was averted. Bought new suction tube and will never do that again!
Last edited by SuperMcluvin70; Jul 27, 2022 at 10:12 AM.
Reason: Misspelling
Just wanted to say thanks to all that reached out with any thoughts of advice regardless. It's nice to know that those with the same type vehicle may have something to share out of experience or that they have heard about. My appreciation even after 30 + years of doing this I still makes mistakes and there is always someone that knows more than I that I will always take advice from. When I think I know it all I will ban myself from working on any of my vehicles or anyone else's for that matter. Thanks to all.
Out of curiosity, how did you drop that down the filter housing?
I had just done a liquid moly engine flush( been running for 15 min) and sucked the oil out of the rear portion of the pan through the oil dipstick and was taking that off the main section of suction tube to suck out the rest from the front portion of oil pan and as I took it off I dropped it. It was pretty hot and super flexible and slid down through it like a snake. I had already taken the filter out while it was suctioning out the rear. It took all of about 1 sec. Now I have a 6 foot piece that size that I can just leave on from now on. I was using it as it fit down the end of the tube better but I had never run it like that just before changing the oil. Like watching a worm pop back into the dirt! Once I got it out it was pretty solid again as it was cold. This whole time I wished I would have hit it with some brake cleaner and that wouldn't have been so malleable but I just bought some new suction hose so I dont have to change anything and should be all goid. It's really stiff tubing too so I was really surprised while I watched it disappear like that.
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