All,
a friend and I are rebuilding his 22r engine. We re-did the head, new head gasket, head job with new valves, everything was going smooth.

When I left the project, the truck was turning on, and staying on, but my friend needed to poor gas down the carb to get it started. So he had his dad rebuild the carb, and he swapped out the intake manifold, because the other one was leaking coolant from the bottom of the intake.

Anyway, fast forward to last sunday, we get the new rebuild carb back on the truck, and I noticed that the carb bolt, the long one that holds down the air filter was missing. Thinking that it dropped down, we took the carb off the truck and looked down the intake but just could not find the bolt.

He even purchased an adjustable magnet, and he checked, but could not find the bolt. He suspected that it was not inside the motor. He went ahead and purchased a new bolt, and finished putting the carb and intake back on.

This is where the No Freaken Way comes in...
When he starts the truck, this time, he is telling me that it is making a knocking noise, and he thinks that the air filter hold down bolt actually dropped down into the intake?

Do you think that this is possible?

I'm telling him no way, because the bolt is way too long, and it would have to get past the carb, intake runner, to get into the head.

What do you guys think? Are we screwed?

Let me know.

Thanks,

Larrys93pickup

 

i knew a guy that sucked the air cleaner stud running down the highway, it was a 350 though, and it put a hole in the cylinder wall.

 

Time to pop the carb off and get a good look in the intake runners.

 

Would the bolt be able to get past the valves on a 22r head?

 

"probably not", but it could stick a valve open for the piston to smack against it.

 

X2 on that. EFI no carb yes.

 

How much damage would that cause, head fu%&-up? what about the piston, could I just replace one?

 

i guess it would depend on how much it tore apart the piston in that short time frame, if it lodged something loose on a piston it could have tore up the cyl wall, the vavle seat in that cyl could be messed up if not the head surface. i would tear the head off and see what was going on and how much damaged there might be.

 

Could I tell by removing the rocker cover and looking at the valve rockers?

What would I be looking for? a valve that is stuck in the down position?

 

That would probably not be the best use of time. If you found a "stuck" valve, that's a teardown to get to the bolt. If you didn't see a "stuck" valve, that's a teardown to find the bolt through other means. Either way, it's a teardown.

If you had a "bore scope"-like tool, you can avoid some teardown by jamming it down things (intake runners, spark plug holes) and getting a good look.

Since they've mentioned a rattle and you're short a bolt, you need to get serious about finding it before starting up the engine again. Without the bore scope, start taking it apart (let the hunt begin).