Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Clever, these new cars

Late yesterday afternoon, as it was begining to get dark, I was working on Merlin attaching Cain’s bonnet stays. Needless to say one of the nuts fell through the engine bay onto the driveway. On laying down on the ground to reach under the car I noticed that it had landed precariously on top of a drainage grill: the first miracle was that it didn’t fall through. At that point our close by brand new VW Golf turned its lights on so I could see what I was doing. Spooky, don’t you think? The nut was retrieved and the job completed.

Actually, I had laid on the remote door lock key fob in my pocket, but I couldn’t have timed it better and would never have thought of using the other car’s lights to show up the nut.

Tim

Sounds like a happy variant of slapstick.

Dropping nuts....... its an age thing, the older you get the more nuts you have to hold in your hand because you will drop at least one, often two.

Telescopic magnets are the answer, easier to get hold of than the elixir of youth.

I dropped one (of two) setscrews into the pit while fitting a skidplate to my Plus 4. It dropped through a quantum portal and despite several searches has not turned up. Cain came to the rescue!

When I was doing a head gasket on a classic Mini years ago, I dropped a pushrod which went down the exhaust downpipe, and lodged at the bottom.........

Even recently when changing the Polo battery I dropped the fixing bolt in the engine bay corner. It vanished. These days I keep a huge selection of fasteners on the shelf so it wasn't a problem replacing it. But I don't like missing bolts in engine bays........ A few days later I was looking again and there it was......large as life and lodged in a corner........

True. Lots of other things drop as you age - not just nuts.

I used my trusty TDC tool on my Enfield Bullet & as I turned cylinder the rod dropped into it as the o ring had rotted

However it took less than 1 hr to strip off the head & put it all back together.

That's one well trained Golf

Many years ago I took the engine/gearbox out of a Maxi...def no high tech!
Had to replace a gearbox lock washer but no “special tools” available hence the strip out.
Reassembled engine/gearbox.
found a spacing washer I had missed.
Repeated the split/rebuild and unit back in the car. All ok.
Full day job in my uncle’s farm barn using his block and tackle to lift the engine.

Not quite the same thing but ages ago I dropped a small spanner while working under the car. It vanished. Or at least I thought it had until after half an hour of walking around looking for it I found it attached to the magnet on the inspection lamp I was carrying. Doh..