| Long ago in another age in a faraway land (actually it was Wales in 1986) I was navigating in a rally car on the Welsh International Rally. We were second in class, catching the class leader and with three stages to go clawing back a 20 second deficit at about 4-5 seconds a stage. We had a good chance of reaching the final stage within 9 or 10 seconds of the lead and since the final stage was a tarmac stage (at Pembrey), and we knew we'd already knocked lumps of time out of the other guy on every tarmac stage thus far, we had a fair chance of stealing the class win.
It was not to be. On that third forest stage from the end the car suddenly lost oil pressure and the cockpit filled with blue haze. We dived under the bonnet and saw, to our dismay, a gaping great hole in the crankcase casting. Although it was just above the oil level, even the finest application of reams of gaffer tape couldn't stop the oil sluicing out all over the exhaust on right handers and by the end of the stage we were out of oil, virtually seized, out of contention and out of time for the next time check.
A post mortem showed that somebody, at some stage in the engines life had dropped a 10mm nut into the sump and not bothered to remove it (or maybe overlooked it or maybe didn't even know it was there). We knew that because we found half of it in the sump and fragments of it lodged on the exhaust. The conclusion we came to was that it must've been picked up in the oil and fired through the crankcase by the crankshaft batting it at the side like a bullet.
The conclusion - no matter how long and fiddly a job has been caused by dropping stuff (and we've all done it) you've got to get it out - all of it.  |