OH dammmmm and help

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Vincent Gillespie
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OH dammmmm and help

#1 Post by Vincent Gillespie »

There I was using a 17mm socket to tightening up the nut that holds the fresh air vent, it's hot over here at the moment so slippery fingers & dropped the socket. Where the hell did that go, Christ there is an opening into the heater tube and it's down there, it's called a fresh air vent not fresh AND hot air vent AAAAAAARRRGH!!!!!

I used my endoscope and saw that it was in the heater tube going towards the back of the car & managed to hook it once with a piece of wire but before I could get my flexi pick up magnet on it it dropped off and now I can't seem to locate it with my endoscope or probes.

I have ordered a more powerful flexi-magnetic pick up in the hope if I get it near it will lock on, has any one else been so butter fingered before and managed to extricate themselves from this, or do they just put up with the rattle of a loose socket in the heater tube!

V
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John Lindstrom
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#2 Post by John Lindstrom »

Put a vacuum cleaner on the opening, make a small ball of paper and tape attached to a string and suck it through. Now use the string that you just fished thru to pull an even larger paper ball thru, bringing the culprit with it. That is, if a magnet doesn’t do the trick.

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Rick Albro
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#3 Post by Rick Albro »

John has the right idea I have used a plastic bag with a string attached. I usually advise to stuff a rag or towel into the the vertical duct work because Murphy says that you will drop one of the nuts or washers if you don't. Also once the string is through the duct work you can tie round magnet on the string and run the string back and forth until the socket is retrieved.
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Vincent Gillespie
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#4 Post by Vincent Gillespie »

Thanks for these great tips, when you say put a vacuum cleaner on the opening do you mean the opening to this air vent and feeding the string and paper ball through the heat vent inside the car that has the slide on it, or sucking the string all the way from the fresh air vent opening to the rear of the car or the other way around?

It's a bit comforting the know that others have got themselves out of this situation before. I wished I had seen Rick's superb 'how to' article before I started this and I will certainly be stuffing a cloth down the hole once I get the socket out. I think this may take a while and need a lot of patience.

I also spoke to Cliff the body work guy, who worked at Porsche all his career, and he told me when he was cutting this section open for repairs he's seen lots of nuts etc inside including a beautiful German made small adjustable spanner, which he still has, and is pretty sure it went in at the factory. One can imagine the owner going back constantly to the dealership complaining about a rattle!!


V
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Rick Albro
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#5 Post by Rick Albro »

Vincent, I think that moving the socket the least distance makes sense to be able to recover it. Go from the back to the front. As you can see the socket or nut/washer/wrench can get stuck. Good luck.
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John Lindstrom
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#6 Post by John Lindstrom »

I should tell you how I have done it in the past: get going in second gear down hill on bumpy paved road then suddenly, slam on the brakes. Amazing the stuff that comes dislodged.

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Rick Albro
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#7 Post by Rick Albro »

John,
If you come out of warp speed to fast you get all kinds of free lessons in physics! :>)

Vincent Gillespie
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#8 Post by Vincent Gillespie »

I was also thinking a trained small species of octopus would easily whizz down the tube and retrieve the socket for me. They are highly intelligent so I don't think it would take that long to train and it could be a nice little earner hiring him/her out to others afterwards, maybe that should be plan B.

I'm not able to use the bumpy hill & brake or sudden stop from warp speed as neither engine is in the car and anyway my 'Dilithium Crystals are like Swiss cheese'.

The first part, getting a thread through with the vacuum cleaner, worked brilliantly & I now have a length of 50lb breaking strain fishing wire PLUS a length of very strong tread through from the interior heater inlet up and out of the fresh/HOT air vent hole & I'm awaiting the arrival of the strong magnetic pick up tool before I go any further.

I'll let you know how I get on and, if it works, I'll give a blow by blow account or I should say a 'suck and pull account' of what I did.

V
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Vincent Gillespie
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#9 Post by Vincent Gillespie »

HA HA got the little bugger, & here's the blow by suck by pull etc account;

I started with the endoscope looking into the heater tube opening from the top of this void from the 'fresh Air' Vent hole so I could see what was happening and had jacked up the rear of the car as high as my jack will go to allow gravity to help.

First using an unraveled coat hanger, inside a small plastic tube, I got this plastic tube into the heater tunnel at the bottom of the void I had dropped the socket into. I then taped this small tube to a normal vacuum cleaner hose.
Via the outlet by one's feet in the car, that the aluminium slider goes across, I then put a fine cotton thread, with a piece of paper tied to it, into the heater tube. It's good if you have longer and more flexible fingers than my sausage fingers, but I managed to get this thread & paper to the junction between this heater slide outlet and the forward tube junction and, when I switched the Vac on, the thread shot up the inlet and there was a nice plop as the small piece of kitchen paper stuck in the end of the plastic hose, which I then pulled out of the top of this cavity.
Using this thread I then pulled through 2 lengths of 25KG fishing wire PLUS a length of very strong carpet stitching thread and then attached a piece of sponge about 3 sq cm to the fishing line and pulled it through.
Nothing but dirt came with it, that's not right I thought, so I put a bigger piece of sponge on the fail safe carpet thread pull through, which definitely filled up the heater tube, and pulled that through, still no FFFNG socket.
Calm, breath, meditate, THINK.
When it dropped of my hook on my earlier attempt maybe it rolled further to the rear of the car, beyond the heater slide junction, but beyond my endoscope field of view that way.
I discussed my problem with an engineering friend who works in the special effects industry and he had given me some armature/sculpture wire as a retrieval aid. I bent a sharp hook on the end of a length of this and pushed it back down the tube towards the rear of the car via the heater slide entrance. Fiddling about with this wire I managed to hear & feel the socket move and then carefully pulled it towards the heater slide opening until I could see it on the endoscope viewer. Then, with my newly acquired 1KG pull flexible magnet, I retrieved the slippery little bugger and pulled it out of the heater slide exit. RESULT

What a palaver, let alone the time taken, for a simple slip of the fingers, so a bottle of Joseph Perrier was drained in celebration, well it is Friday and the weather is glorious here at the moment.

ANYONE ELSE PUTTING THIS FRESH AND HOT AIR VENT BACK STUFF A PIECE OF CLOTH IN THIS HOLE"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[quote][/quote]
V

PS With the back of the car up in the air, & feeling lucky, I thought I'd get the control wire for the 'Choke cable' through the outer bowden cable sleeve guide and it worked first time no bother.
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John Hearn
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#10 Post by John Hearn »

Vincent
Well done, nothing helps to concentrate the mind than a "project" like this.
Will you be at any Porsche events in USA this year?
KTF
John

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Martin Benade
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#11 Post by Martin Benade »

Good job. Your drinking habits are quite moderate.
Cleveland Ohio
62 Cabriolet
56 VW
02 IS 300
04 Sienna

Vincent Gillespie
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#12 Post by Vincent Gillespie »

Thanks for the tips & encouragement, the sucking through a pull through is brilliant, and I hope this might help someone else in a similar predicament.

Martin, I think you might be confusing Perrier water with Joseph Perrier's product which is our favourite Champagne and there were a couple of beers as well!

In answer to your question John no thought of visiting the States at the moment, we've just had a mad couple of months bouncing all over the place, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Ireland and Sheffield!! So there is some catching up to do including what was a jungle of a garden!!

V&S
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Martin Benade
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Re: OH dammmmm and help

#13 Post by Martin Benade »

My ignorance shows...
Cleveland Ohio
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56 VW
02 IS 300
04 Sienna

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