Where did it sit all year??

Last spring, as I was prepping my RR Neon for the season, I knocked the radiator drain plug for my super-duper aluminum radiator off the rad support. I searched for a quite considerable period of time. since its a 12mmx1.0 thread aluminum plug. It fell into something, somewhere, so I found an old bolt with the right thread, cut off what I needed, welded a nut on it, and now I have a steel grassroots rad plug.

I towed about 9500 km last year, raced 6 weekends, ran a couple of autoslaloms, and generally had a pretty good time.

Its spring again. I lifted the car on the hoist, reached up to grab a bolt, and the original aluminum drain plug fell on the floor.

No point to the story, just thought it was interesting.

Did you ever have a niece or nephew send you a "Flat Stanley" to take around? I think your plug must have been off on a similar adventure...

I don't suppose you found the 14mm socket my wife's car swallowed a year or two ago...

Maybe the black hole that eats all my stuff ends in your Neon too.

Edited for spelling. Guess I should proof read before posting.

Embarrassing... but I once drove around an entire season before re-discovering a "lost" small ratchet.

My car's front crossmember is filled with random sized sockets. Eventually the contents therein will be worth more than the car.

I have a fairly sizeable Craftsman screwdriver in the engine bay of the MX6 somewhere i'm fairly certain. I guess i'll find it someday. Or not.

While doing the pre flight checks on a Lear 25 coming out of an engine overhaul I found an entire snap on 1/4" socket set in the "hell hole". No one admitted that they left it there, now it is mine

pilotbraden wrote: While doing the pre flight checks on a Lear 25 coming out of an engine overhaul I found an entire snap on 1/4" socket set in the "hell hole". No one admitted that they left it there, now it is mine

I have my fathers set. It is an old one from the 50's in the metal box. I lost a snap-on 3/8" flex head ratchet in the engine compartment when I changed the water pump on hi 94 Chevy P/U 4 years ago. I look for it every time I am under the hood but still havent found it

I had a bolt come out of the Trans-Am at autocross once.

I have no idea where it came from, I've taken these cars completely apart, put them back together again and never seen the same bolt that fell out of my car.

Shawn

There is a hole just under thr tranny side engine mount on a Neon that is notorious for swallowing any fallen socket thas has the misfortune of coming near it. The appetite of this simple oval hole is legion. I figure most models of cars have simililar "black hole" built into the unibody somewhere. This is the kind of feature that should be addressed in service manuals, but is not. It is left up to word-of-mouth, a tradtion of oral legend soought out by car tinkerers everywhere.

Perhaps we could put together a comprehensive list of "unibody/frame rail black holes" for posterity, and in the interest of saving our beloved tools from the land of limbo...

I usually encounter the trans engine off angle bank shot into the driveway full of similarly colored dust. I really need to invest in some magnets, but I think all the steel screws are good for the soil.. right?

NYG95GA wrote: There is a hole just under thr tranny side engine mount on a Neon that is notorious for swallowing any fallen socket thas has the misfortune of coming near it. The appetite of this simple oval hole is legion.

Yup, I've lost sockets in there, for good. Then again, I built a socket into the 2.4 car - I needed a spacer for the modified motormount adapter plate, and a spare 5/8" Craftsman socket was exactly the right size and shape.

Pulled the intake off of a 400 in a '69 Firebird, there was a 9/16 combination wrench lying in the lifter valley.

I used to work with a guy who worked for Electric Boat in Groton, CT. He said that a sub came back in after sea trials with a rattle noise, they found an aluminum extension ladder in one of the ballast compartments along with a couple of toolboxes.

This is getting good ;).

I like "mystery spot" stories. None of my own are coming to mind at the moment.

I once watched a guy in a Bug bounce off a parking block because he couldn't come to a stop due to a coffee cup/mug rolling out from under his seat and getting lodged between the floor and the brake pedal.

A similar thing happened to my dad back when i was in high school. He was in this guy's basement fixing the washing machine and forgot his pocket knife there. Since we never get calls from people who find our stuff, he figured it was gone for good, but a couple years later the same guy's dryer had broken. My dad went down there and saw his pocket knife opened up, sitting on a stool. Exactly where he left it.

I found a big flat blade snap-on screwdriver stuck between the block and exhaust manifold of a customers car once. A wire wheel took all the corrosion off the blade and the snap-on guy replaced the very melted handle for free.

I went for a drive with a spanner and a bolt resting on the 'rolla's shock tower. Amazing that they were still there.

Sounds like the carpet monster under my model building table has a more generous evil twin. At least ya'll get your stuff back. The carpet monster keeps all it eats, especially likes the small important parts.

I once found a 1/4" drive 10mm Snap-on socket on a dirt road above Park City, Utah. Sometimes they do fall out

A random socket just fell out of the Capri last weekend when I was trying to remove the sway bar. I guess I'm ahead of the curve; at least I dont remember losing tools, yet...

Dont get me started about dropped small parts. I'm a watchmaker, enough said.

I once set down a small crescent wrench while putting a miter saw on a stand. I went to grab it again and it was gone. I was home alone at the time and knew exactly where I set it down. I got the heebie geebies and went upstairs for the rest of the afternoon.

A friend of mine owns a repair shop. He connected me to one of his customers who was selling a Miata. I bought the car. About 3 months later I had the in the shop to put a roll bar in. With everything out of the trunk I noticed an expensive looking Snap-On swivel head 14mm socket sitting on top one of the rear struts. I pulled it out and said "Look what I found." The head technician looked and said, "I wondered where I that thing went." Turns out he left in the car more than year before when replaced the rear dampers. What made really funny was that he had just lost the socket he bought to replace it.

I left a 10" cheater pipe in the windshield washer tray on my 98 Dakota once. I didn't notice or hear it until the next time I was under the hood.

BTW, they must use trained gorillas (or possible air-tools) to install the spark plugs in those things.

GameboyRMH wrote: I went for a drive with a spanner and a bolt resting on the 'rolla's shock tower. Amazing that they were still there.

Just reminded me of the time I left a pair of pliers on the strut tower of my 510. I drove about 250 miles, and as I turned into my girlfriends yard, the pliers fell, and the handle slipped right through the steering shaft ujoint. Locked the steering solid.

There were many, many places on the trip that could have been a very big problem.