Ahhhhhhh! %#@&%X*!!!
10-21-18 Ahhhhhhh! %#@&%X*!!!
I have a potentially serious problem that I can only describe now after several hours of screaming, hair pulling, gnashing of teeth, and using up my entire, and I might say rather extensive, vocabulary of curse words..several times over.
Here is the situation. I was sampling the transmission oil on my starboard engine and when I tried to withdraw the 12 inch long, 1/4" tubing from the dipstick hole, it popped off the suction mechanism. I watched in frozen horror as it gently slid down into the transmission out of sight. After regaining my composure, oh, say twenty minutes, maybe more... I wasn't keeping track. I tried unsuccessfully to extract the tubing with a four-finger spring grabber for over an hour. I actually got a hold of it four times but because I had gripped it somewhere in the middle, I could not pull it up through the dipstick hole. After that fourth time though, I was unable to even find/feel it with the grabber and further efforts were fruitless.
I am afraid that the only way now to remove the plastic tubing is to pull the transmission - and expensive and time consuming endeavor even if I can get someone to do it in a timely fashion this time of year.
Do I dare try to engage the transmission? My guess is that the tubing is down somewhere in the sump and MAY stay there benignly until I can get to somewhere where I have time to properly deal with it. However, even if the tubing is a rather soft plastic, the tolerances in the transmission gearing is very close and catching the tubing between gears may just destroy the transmission and possibly damage the engine in the process.
My familiarity with the inside of transmissions is limited to exploded line diagrams and schematics. I welcome any learned advice that will ease my predicament or at least give guidance to a possible solution.
10-24-18 Outcome?
I had numerous suggestions offered on the GHTA and AGLCA forums. Though some were of help only in a theoretical sense, a couple were quite helpful. Here is the situation after a couple of days of efforts.
I again tried fishing out the tubing with the springy grabber through the dipstick hole for another 45 minutes, again without success or even seeing or contacting the tubing. Then after using a borrowed articulated ratchet, a newly purchased 24mm socket (actually had to buy a set of five sockets - $35!), a 4" socket extension, a socket handle extension I call a persuader bar (it's a piece of steel pipe) and a great deal of red-faced grunting, I was able to break loose the oil drain plug and subsequently drained the oil from the transmision. Then I used a newly purchased fiber-optic borescope to examine the internals of the transmission from both dipstick and oil drain apertures.
If I didn't see it go sliding down into there a couple days ago, I'd say there wasn't any errant plastic tubing inside the transmission. I did not see a thing that wasn't supposed to be there. I searched for an hour and then my wife (an MD with extensive experience in colonoscopy technique) looked around for another hour. I must admit that she was able to find several new places I hadn't seen in my efforts, but neither of us saw any glimpse of the bashful tubing. My wife did notice a suspicious polyp that she wanted to harvest for cellular histology but we didn't have the proper lasso attachment (just kidding). Nope, found nothing. Wherever that tubing is hiding inside there, it is in a place that we can't find from the outside with any available tool, not to mention that it would be even less likely that we could retrieve it. Hmphf.
BUT THERE IS HOPE! Several of you suggested that I contact Mastry Engine in St. Petersburg which I did. The technician there was unconcerned about leaving the tubing in place. He says the gears are hardened steel and the tubing is essentially oil in a different form. Rather than jam up the gears, they will chew up the soft plastic into tiny bits like a Cuisinart. The lubrication method is splashing, not pumped, so small pieces of plastic will not plug lubrication ports or orifices. He feels the only necessary maintenance needed will be a few frequent oil changes until I stop seeing plastic bits in the oil.
So that's where it stands right now. I will refill the transmission with new oil and buy extra for several oil changes to come. I will then proceed with my journey south for the winter and attentively listen with trepidation for any errant sound coming from the starboard engine. I have a feeling that until this entire episode is over and no more plastic is forthcoming from the transmission, I will have aching hands from my continually crossed fingers.
From this experience I can offer a few suggestions to anyone else who encounters this situation. 1.It's very dark in there. 2.There are many, many, parts, gears, corners, and casting ribs to snag wire hooks that will prevent fishing out anything or even penetrating with any probe deep into recesses. 3.Even a borescope will have a limited view of the lower parts and none at all of the upper transmission. (I suppose a steerable borescope might have more success, but retrieval will still be a problem.) and 4. MOST IMPORTANTLY, Just don't drop anything in there in the first place and you can avoid the whole friggin' problem!
I have a potentially serious problem that I can only describe now after several hours of screaming, hair pulling, gnashing of teeth, and using up my entire, and I might say rather extensive, vocabulary of curse words..several times over.
Here is the situation. I was sampling the transmission oil on my starboard engine and when I tried to withdraw the 12 inch long, 1/4" tubing from the dipstick hole, it popped off the suction mechanism. I watched in frozen horror as it gently slid down into the transmission out of sight. After regaining my composure, oh, say twenty minutes, maybe more... I wasn't keeping track. I tried unsuccessfully to extract the tubing with a four-finger spring grabber for over an hour. I actually got a hold of it four times but because I had gripped it somewhere in the middle, I could not pull it up through the dipstick hole. After that fourth time though, I was unable to even find/feel it with the grabber and further efforts were fruitless.
I am afraid that the only way now to remove the plastic tubing is to pull the transmission - and expensive and time consuming endeavor even if I can get someone to do it in a timely fashion this time of year.
Do I dare try to engage the transmission? My guess is that the tubing is down somewhere in the sump and MAY stay there benignly until I can get to somewhere where I have time to properly deal with it. However, even if the tubing is a rather soft plastic, the tolerances in the transmission gearing is very close and catching the tubing between gears may just destroy the transmission and possibly damage the engine in the process.
My familiarity with the inside of transmissions is limited to exploded line diagrams and schematics. I welcome any learned advice that will ease my predicament or at least give guidance to a possible solution.
10-24-18 Outcome?
I had numerous suggestions offered on the GHTA and AGLCA forums. Though some were of help only in a theoretical sense, a couple were quite helpful. Here is the situation after a couple of days of efforts.
I again tried fishing out the tubing with the springy grabber through the dipstick hole for another 45 minutes, again without success or even seeing or contacting the tubing. Then after using a borrowed articulated ratchet, a newly purchased 24mm socket (actually had to buy a set of five sockets - $35!), a 4" socket extension, a socket handle extension I call a persuader bar (it's a piece of steel pipe) and a great deal of red-faced grunting, I was able to break loose the oil drain plug and subsequently drained the oil from the transmision. Then I used a newly purchased fiber-optic borescope to examine the internals of the transmission from both dipstick and oil drain apertures.
If I didn't see it go sliding down into there a couple days ago, I'd say there wasn't any errant plastic tubing inside the transmission. I did not see a thing that wasn't supposed to be there. I searched for an hour and then my wife (an MD with extensive experience in colonoscopy technique) looked around for another hour. I must admit that she was able to find several new places I hadn't seen in my efforts, but neither of us saw any glimpse of the bashful tubing. My wife did notice a suspicious polyp that she wanted to harvest for cellular histology but we didn't have the proper lasso attachment (just kidding). Nope, found nothing. Wherever that tubing is hiding inside there, it is in a place that we can't find from the outside with any available tool, not to mention that it would be even less likely that we could retrieve it. Hmphf.
BUT THERE IS HOPE! Several of you suggested that I contact Mastry Engine in St. Petersburg which I did. The technician there was unconcerned about leaving the tubing in place. He says the gears are hardened steel and the tubing is essentially oil in a different form. Rather than jam up the gears, they will chew up the soft plastic into tiny bits like a Cuisinart. The lubrication method is splashing, not pumped, so small pieces of plastic will not plug lubrication ports or orifices. He feels the only necessary maintenance needed will be a few frequent oil changes until I stop seeing plastic bits in the oil.
So that's where it stands right now. I will refill the transmission with new oil and buy extra for several oil changes to come. I will then proceed with my journey south for the winter and attentively listen with trepidation for any errant sound coming from the starboard engine. I have a feeling that until this entire episode is over and no more plastic is forthcoming from the transmission, I will have aching hands from my continually crossed fingers.
From this experience I can offer a few suggestions to anyone else who encounters this situation. 1.It's very dark in there. 2.There are many, many, parts, gears, corners, and casting ribs to snag wire hooks that will prevent fishing out anything or even penetrating with any probe deep into recesses. 3.Even a borescope will have a limited view of the lower parts and none at all of the upper transmission. (I suppose a steerable borescope might have more success, but retrieval will still be a problem.) and 4. MOST IMPORTANTLY, Just don't drop anything in there in the first place and you can avoid the whole friggin' problem!
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