Base of dipstick tube fell into oil pan - help?

[fsr7]

Workin on a friends 96 pstroke that developed an oil run off from the base of the dipstick tube - spun that huge nut off of the side of the oil pan, pulled the dipstick out, and knocked the threaded part of the base of the dipstick tube right into the oil pan. Anyone ever done this before? Is it possible to fish that thing back into where it belongs with a magnet or some such tool, or does the oil pan have to get dropped to retrieve it? Any help appreciated.

 

[Russ]

You're gonna have to pull the engine. Pan won't clear the crossmember. Sorry about your luck.

 

[fsr7]

how far does the engine need to lift before the pan will slide out? I'm gonna go play with my cool new flex form pencil magnet...

 

[towcat]

the motor is shoehorned in.
time to pull the motor.

 

[Russ]

Call this a little to late but here's the way to fix the leak with the engine in the truck



Replacing Dipstick seal without dropping pan


Go to a IH truck location and get (Dipstick Mount Seal Repair Kit with instructions
(International) 1846146c91 (silicone, loctite gasket eliminator, adapter gasket, dipstick o-ring) the right o-rings 2 one big for around the big plug and a small one for the dip stick. also make sure you have a set of gripper clamps like doctors use or a needle nose vise-grips, to hold the brass part so you don't loose it inside the pan.
1 pull dip stick and the starter /yes you need the room so you dont drop the brass nut.
2. put the big o-ring on the clamp then grab the hole the dip sick goes in then back off the nut. check it as some have stripped the threads over tightening it trying to stop leak. if it is stripped then you got problems as it can only be replaced by dropping the pan. sorry i have not done it so no help there
3. very easy push the big brass in and cut the o-ring and get rid of the old. slip the new in it fits in a grove and then pull it back where it goes and tighten the not to just good not over tight so you strip the nut.
good luck

If you don’t get the o-ring that needed. Buy a new tube of the good rtv. Pulled the starter & cleaned the side of the pan. I used needle nose vise-grips (as suggested), and pulled the nut off. Then moved the housing into the pan. Pulled the o-ring, cleaned the o-ring & housing, put rtv on the o-ring & the outside of the pan. Slid the housing back in place & replaced the nut.

 

[fsr7]

hmm, guess I should have looked for that info before this morning oh well now though... so the piece that fell into the oil pan is brass? if that's the case, I'm certainly not going to get it with a magnet. the thing about this truck is that the next time the motor comes out, its staying out and the rest of the truck is junk... so when time permits, I'm going to cut out a section of the bottom of the oil pan to retrieve my missing parts and reseal the ****, then weld it back together. If that doesn't work, I'll pull it and just put a different pan on. I hate sundays. I gotta track down an out of truck engine now too mark up a "safe" spot to cut...

 

[yoslick]

Use a hole saw, better cut and a whole lot easier to weld back up..

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

This is a long shot, but if you know anybody with a boroscope, it would help you tremendously as you would be able to see in the pan through the drain hole.

I think cutting a trap door in the oil pan sounds interesting. I don't own a Powerstroke, but I've got to think you can put some thought into where you put the hole you might be able to fish the old one out and/or reinstall it from the inside and weld it shut in far less time than removing the engine. Just my .02 but I would make a 3 sided cut and gently fold the flap down to reveal the inside of the pan. The only thing I would worry about is getting everything clean enough to weld it back together when you are done, particularly any debris on the inside of the pan.


It's not my truck and I'm sure lots of people will disagree, but I like the challenge/adventure of it.

Good luck no matter what you end up doing.

 

[geonc]

Russ has good info...just a day late and a dollar short ;p

That adaptor is pot metal= non-magnetic

try a bent coat hangar...fish it around and using needle nose pliers re-orient it and spray it down with brake kleen...it will no doubt distort the seal ring but a good layer of Wacker or similiar sealant around the threads will get you going!

on a side note...most dip stick adaptors I have dealt with are egg shaped and many believe tightening it up to ass pucker tight will re-seal it---WRONG!...it only distorts it more....

You can buy them new from the stealership for about $40...but you have to buy the small o ring seperately

Good luck

 

[fsr7]

So I carefully cut a section out of the oil pan and started retrieving my lost parts... and have another question. the oring that sits inside the pan that I got from ford is much smaller than the one I retrieved from in the pan. Is this oring updated at this point, or was the ring I retrieved from something different, or has this particular assembly been rigged together before? here is a pic - new one on the left, stupid potmetal thingy in the middle, old one on the right.

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

The o-ring you retrieved from the oil pan is most likely just swelled from being completely exposed to hot oil. It is very common to have to stretch a new o-ring over a thread when they are new.

Put it together, it should be fine.

 

[yoslick]

take a pic of the hole in the pan for us? be a good reference on where to cut in the future for others..

Slick

 

[fsr7]

Ask and you shall recieve... here are the pics of the hole and the patch, it went alright... I flushed the pan with brake parts cleaner and ran through it with a magnet after cutting the hole, it was clean in there before the weld job. After the weld, I flushed it with three quarts of oil, then with a gallon of diesel fuel, then another two quarts of oil... then filled it and changed the filter. No more leaks on initial startup, hopefully there is nothing left in the pan to play with important stuff I'll certainly repost if anything catastrophic happens to this engine.

 

[fsr7]

Also, this took me about 8 hours - but I was not working on it exclusively. Tracing the leaks in the welds, filling it with this and that and draining it and putting the used oil in my IDI's tank all took extra time. Even with the precautions I took to make this project as "right" as it could be, the time it took was considerably less than pulling the engine. If I was doing it on a truck that was mine and I planned to keep for some time, I would have cut out the whole bottom of the pan and rebuilt it in such a way that it was removeable. Just in case....

 

[geonc]

Loosely quoting Gunny Sgt Tom Highway.....

...Improvise---Adapt--and Overcome!

Nice job. Keep us posted